8 Treatment of Nature in Indian English Poetry (Pre-Independence/ Post-Independence era)
Abdul Mubid Islam
Introducing the Poets:
Sarojini Naidu was born in February 13, 1978 in Hyderabad. She hailed from a family of academician and scientists, her father Dr. Aghornath Chattopadhyaya being a scientist himself and the founder of the Nizam College of Hyderabad while her mother was Mrs. Varasundari, an accomplished Bengali Poet. Her early play Maher Muneer impressed the Nizam of Hyderabad so much that he provided her with a scholarship to go abroad for further studies. She then got admitted in the King’s College where she met Govind Naidu whom she eventually married at the age of 19. Naidu’s vast readings and inspiration from her father made her well versed in Hindu mythology, Urdu and Persian folklore. In Cambridge while still a student, she published her first poem “The Song of a Dream” being highly influenced by the works of English Romantic poets like Byron and Keats. It was in England that she came under the enervating influence of her literary mentors like Arthur Symons and Edmund Gosse who made it a point to give her an identity which would endear her towards her own origin. Both Symons and Gosse advised her to be a poet of the East and to uphold the charm of the Indian panorama in her poetry. And it is this piece of advice that Naidu tried to uphold in the later course of her creative life. The early streaks of English Romanticism gradually diminished and came to be substituted by more indigenous themes concerning Indian life. It was in fact her correspondence with Mahatma Gandhi whom she called “Mickey Mouse” of Indian politics along with the gruesome picture of Indian colonial situation that transformed her completely from a romantic singer of life’s beautiful peculiarities to a determined and impassioned fighter for her country’s liberation. Her published works include The Golden Threshold (1905) followed by the subsequent publications of The Bird of Time, The Broken Wings, The Magic Trees, The Wizard Mask and A Treasury of Poems. She plunged headlong into the vortex of the Indian political struggle immediately after the publication of The Broken Wing in 1917. Her oratory powers awakened and kindled the hearts of men who were in the enigmatic spell of colonial bondage; her poetic voice broke free all barriers and became the harbinger of a new era of freedom. On March 2, 1949, this ‘Nightingale of India’ breathed her last.
Coromandel Fishers
Rise, brothers, rise; the wakening skies pray to the morning light,
The wind lies asleep in the arms of the dawn like a child that has cried all night.
Come, let us gather our nets from the shore and set our catamarans free,
To capture the leaping wealth of the tide, for we are the kings of the sea!
No longer delay, let us hasten away in the track of the sea gull’s call,
The sea is our mother, the cloud is our brother, the waves are our comrades all.
What though we toss at the fall of the sun where the hand of the sea-god drives?
He who holds the storm by the hair, will hide in his breast our lives.
Sweet is the shade of the cocoanut glade, and the scent of the mango grove,
And sweet are the sands at the full o’ the moon with the sound of the voices we love;
But sweeter, O brothers, the kiss of the spray and the dance of the wild foam’s glee;
Row, brothers, row to the edge of the verge, where the low sky mates with the sea.
(Sarojini Naidu)
Critical Appreciation
In this poem, the idea of sensuality is quite profound as the crux of the poem is built on the principle of a reciprocal relation between Nature and the human world of which the fishermen are just but a part. Sarojini Naidu’s deep sense of romanticism tally forth with her preoccupation with Nature as reflected in the expressions such as “wakening skies”, “wind lies asleep in the arms of the dawn like a child”, “leaping wealth of the tide”, “kiss of the spray and the dance of the wild foam’s glee” and so forth. The idea of human solidarity even in its lowest level is seen in the comradeship of the ‘brother’ fishermen. This aspect of oneness finds ample reflection in the fishermen’s sojourn in the sea to eke out a sound living. The expression “Come, let us gather our nets from the shore and set our catamarans free, / To capture the leaping wealth of the tide, for we are the kings of the sea!” is an instance in point.
The second paragraph explicitly dwells on the idea of a family made possible by the incredible affinity of the fishermen with the sea. This is evinced by the fabricated romantic ideal of the sea being the mother, the cloud as the brother and the waves as comrades. However, seen from the Indian subject position, the poem also bear traces of patriarchal violence in the form of visualising the sea gods holding the locks of the storm. The expression “He who holds the storm by the hair” is fitting evidence that undercuts the very idea of an Indian Romanticism as against the Western model. That the sea god holds malevolent powers which can assure the fishermen safe passage in the sea reflects the male- dominated pattern of conceptualising Nature.
The poem is craftily set with a panoramic clarity that gives the reader a deep sense of empathy. Expressions like “coconut glade”, “scent of the mango grove”, “kiss of the spray”, and “dance of the wild foam” not only highlights the sensuousness of nature but also establishes the serenity of the sea as witnessed by the eyes of men. The harmony between man and nature is finally achieved when Naidu makes the fishermen privy to the eternal marriage of the sky with the sea. This union is brought forward by the exemplary use of a sexual imagery in the form of the low sky mating with the sea. The idea is to suggest the beauty generated in watching the horizon at dusk that dazzles before the eyes of the fishermen.
On the whole, the poem establishes an interconnection between the natural world and the world of human. While on the one hand, the fishermen are busy “capturing the leaping wealth of the tide” which is indicative of the shoal of fishes kissing their nets, on the other hand, they are equally responsive to the beauty and charm of Nature. Naidu here not only tries to spiritualise nature; she goes a step further in voicing out the elemental passion of Nature.
In Praise of Henna
A KOKILA called from a henna-spray:
Lira! liree! Lira! liree!
Hasten, maidens, hasten away
To gather the leaves of the henna-tree.
Send your pitchers afloat on the tide,
Gather the leaves ere the dawn be old,
Grind them in mortars of amber and gold,
The fresh green leaves of the henna-tree.
A kokila called from a henna-spray:
Lira! liree! Lira! liree!
Hasten maidens, hasten away
To gather the leaves of the henna-tree.
The tilka’s red for the brow of a bride,
And betel-nut’s red for lips that are sweet;
But, for lily-like fingers and feet,
The red, the red of the henna-tree.
(Sarojini Naidu)
Critical Appreciation
In this poem, Naidu harps upon the Indian traditional ritual of adorning the hands and feet of the bride with henna or mehandi which is a red dye used mostly as a cosmetic item. The poem begins with the symbolic arrival of the Kokila bird which suggests the freshness of the henna leaves and the onset of spring. The idea of grinding the henna leaves to produce the dye might leave the reader in a confounded state especially when the reader is a foreigner or is not habituated to the Indian marital ritual. One must note that the very act of grinding in mortars is something that is intrinsically related to the Indian herbal science of ayurveda. The poem as such can be seen both as a celebration of the Indian ritual as well as a glorification of the herbal science that has long been the guard of honour of Indian medical science.
The second paragraph begins with the refrain “A kokila called from a henna-spray” and gives a semblance of continuity. However, what is more striking is Naidu’s dexterous use of the
contrast that vindicates the dichotomy of gender. In other words, the second paragraph illustrates the gulf of difference between the male and female in so far as marriage is concerned. This is highlighted in the use of the striking metaphors of “betel-nut’s red for lips that are sweet” and “tilka’s red for the brow of a bride”. While the adjectival phrase “betel- nut’s red” denotes the qualitative standard of the male (that is the would-be groom) habituated to chewing paan, the redness of the ‘tilka’ and the “lily-like fingers and feet” demonstrates the fragility of the female. In a sense, it can be argued that the colour ‘red’ is used as a connective link between both the male and the female—that is to say, redness of henna/mehandi for the female bride and the redness that emanates from the chewing of betel- nut on the lips of the groom.
The title therefore justifiably suits the exigencies of Indian marriage and also throws significant light on the importance of nature in the daily drama of human life. Naidu in a sense sees both in man and Nature an umbilical relation, too deep to delve yet mysteriously conditional.
Introducing the poet:
Keki N. Daruwalla (born 1937) is a police officer by profession who has simultaneously managed to pursue the creative art of poetry. He has published twelve volumes of poetry— Under Orion (1970), Apparition in April (1971) and Crossing of Rivers (1976), Winter Poems (1980), The Keeper of the Dead (1982), Landscapes (1987), A Summer of Tigers (1995), Night River (2000), Map Maker (2002), The Scarecrow and the Ghost (2004), Collected Poems 1970-2005 (2006) and The Glass-blower: Selected Poems (2008). He has received the prestigious Sahitya Academy Award in 1984 for his anthology The Keeper of the Dead. Daruwalla believes in the subjective response of the poet in producing a work of art and he says that poetry, for him, is first personal, exploratory, at times even therapeutic which helps in coming to terms with one’s interior world. He is also an acclaimed novelist and a short story writer. The striking imaginative power of his verse has established his reputation as a unique poet in the annals of Indian English Literature.
Gulzaman’s Son
Climbing his tortuous way from Kanzalwan
Gulzaman leaves the river, buckwheat harvests
and slopes dark with conifers. His breath comes
in a half-choked whistle, the air uncertain
whether to burst through the lungs or whoosh
out of the mouth.
He doesn’t remain with his people now,
among the sheepfolds and high-pasture huts
They rag him, ‘Gulzaman, where is the son?’
They’re not funny, these jibes
at his virility. So each sundown he leaves
for the river to sleep in a stone-breaker’s
pine-hut till at dawn the sheep call him.
Gulzaman strains up the last hundred feet
to reach the fold. Expectant ewes
sheek shelter from the wind under the lee
of limestone walls. He sees his kinsmen,
bearded and gaunt and broad-boned as himself,
brooding over a dead kid. Rain starts hissing.
There has been such heavy sleet the week past
that in the sheepfolds new-borns have been dying.
With the mothers wind-weakened and fed
on wet grass, the lambs are still-born, flopping
inert on the earth. Ewes don’t even lick
them and probe for hidden embers of life
with their raking tongues. Broken, they turn
on their sides like sacks of crushed ice.
The turf is sodden but his own fold
is a small den made snug by bales of hay.
His ewe snuggles up to him and bleats
Recognition, a thin tremolo of love
blanketed by gutturals of pain.
Relations crowd, darkening the doorway,
as with heavily-greased arms Gulzaman
examines her. Yes, the lamb is on its way!
An hour later it is there, quavery-legged
and wet and uncertain about
its rickety, four-pronged hold on earth.
Shortly it pees. Allah be praised, now it will live
It cannot die of a chill in the stomach.
Either the doorway has been cleared, or clouds
have been parted for an instant by the sun.
Gulzaman picks the dun-coloured lamb and holds
it to his chest. ‘This’, he says, ‘this is my son.’
(Keki N.Daruwalla)
Critical Appreciation
In this poem, Keki N. Daruwalla through his poetic persona sketches an unusually appealing picture of human life and solidarity. On the one hand, the poem is all about Gulzaman’s life in terms of his relationship with the people in his neighbourhood while on the other hand, it is also about his love and deep concern for the animal world. Daruwalla’s treatment of nature is a fine mixture of emotional vitality and practical necessity and it is this idea that brands him as a quintessential nature poet. However, one must note that the romantic idealism that has long been used synonymously with the thematic appropriation of nature in poetry should not on any ground be seen to be the hallmark of Daruwalla’s poetry. Daruwalla is known for his exceptional ability to describe scenes and incidents in great detail. Yet, he is dispassionate in the rendering of his observations and a fitting testimony to this is his circumstantial description of a sequence of scenes and the event of the birth of a lamb with great accuracy.
In the poem, Gulzaman’s excessive love extraordinary temperament and ability to simplicity in his ewe. Ewe means an adult for his sheep is see and feel the female sheep and primarily because of his nuances of innocence and the poet uses this image to symbolically represent nature. Gulzaman’s love is intensified due to the merciless onslaughts of society against his reproductive infertility or childlessness. In a sense, his love for the ewe can be seen as the only possible solace and a deliberate strategy to avoid such bitter criticism of his potency. The ridiculously inhuman behaviour and conservatism of society which constantly nags and taunts Gulzaman and ostracize him is best reflected in the neighbour’s inquiry “Gulzaman, where is the son?” Gulzaman’s efforts to rehabilitate by associating himself with his ewe adequately highlight the degree of his agony.
Daruwalla’s descriptive powers are witnessed succinctly at the very beginning of the poem when he describes Gulzaman’s tortuous way from Kanzalwan through buckwheat forests and slopes dark with conifers. The poet then describes the physical infirmities of Gulzaman in terms of his breathing problem. The expression “in a half-chocked whistle, the air uncertain/ whether to burst through the lungs or whoosh/ out from the mouth” is suggestive of a severe bout of asthma which makes it even more difficult for Gulzaman to plod along. Gulzaman’s isolated life and the jibes of society at his virility are accurately represented in addition to the reference to the pine-hut of the stone-breaker where Gulzaman use to sleep.
The descriptive powers of the poet gather momentum when he portrays an uncanny picture of the uncongenial weather conditions making life difficult for survival. Here, both the human and the animal world are shown to be affected by the vicissitudes of nature. There seems to be in this context a parallel between the hostility of society and the cruelty of weather pitted against the destiny of Gulzaman. This demoralizes Gulzaman and lands him in an unrecuperable position. That expectant ewes seek shelter from the ghastly wind, that Gulzaman’s kinsmen broods and gloats over a dead kid, that rain starts hissing with the heavy sleet, that weak mothers do not lick their new-borns are all pictures and images that establish Daruwalla’s splendid description of the degree of pain and suffering of Gulzaman. On the whole, Daruwalla delineates nature that has turned against life be that of the humans or the animals. In order to counter such hostile climatic condition, the poet describes Gulzaman’s determination to stay with his sheep. The emotive rendering of the ewe snuggling and bleating a ‘thin tremolo of love’ that is ‘blanketed by gutturals of pain’ not only unveils Daruwalla’s adept handling of the foreign lexicon and diction but also brings forth the human element in Gulzaman which is ironically missing in the society to which he truly belong.
The poem comes full circle with the birth of a lamb to Gulzaman’s ewe that is ‘quavery- legged’ and wet and is uncertain about its hold on the earth. And it is this new-born lamb that finally provides succour to the demoralized Gulzaman. The birth of the lamb symbolizes the rejuvenation of Gulzaman’s spirits and rouses the fatherly feelings long gone dormant in Gulzaman. He therefore embraces the new-born in the manner of a man’s delightful demeanour on attaining fatherhood. The final assertion “‘This’, he says, ‘this is my son’.” is an instance in point.
Wolf
Fire-lit
half silhouette and half myth
the wolf circles my past
treading the leaves into a bed
till he sleeps, black snout
on extended paws.
Black snout on sulphur body
he nudged his way
into my consciousness.
Prowler, wind-sniffer, throat-catcher,
his cries drew a ring
around my night;
a child’s night is a village
on the forest edge.
My mother said
his ears stand up at the fall of dew
he can sense a shadow
move across a hedge
on a dark night;
he can sniff out
your approaching dreams;
there is nothing
that won’t be lit up
by the dark torch of his eyes.
The wolves have been slaughtered now.
A hedge of smoking gun-barrels
rings my daughter’s dreams.
(Keki N. Daruwalla)
Critical Appreciation
Daruwalla’s explicit concern in the poem “Wolf” is crafted around the mythical significance of the wolf image that is normally used by the parents to control the behaviour of their children. The expression “half-silhouette and half-myth” is an instance in point. Although the poem apparently creates a Blakeian atmosphere as evident in the famous poem “Tyger”, the poem in question is not about highlighting the qualitative merits of the beast. Daruwalla is more concerned about the behavioural disposition of the wolf as a symbol of awe and fear. This is highlighted in the expression “the wolf circles my past’ which is clearly indicative of a similar experience of the poet in his childhood. The “past” here refers to the poet’s childhood when he too was fed with such stories probably by his mother. Thus, the image of the wolf in the poem is not just a celebration of nature but is in a sense a glowing reminder of the indifference of nature which also nurtures such creatures of devilish dimension.
The formation of the psyche in a child begins to bloom at a much tender age. The child begins to feel the pull of the psyche and thereby its impact which further acquires impregnable dimension in his adult life. This is not an attempt to chat out the origins of the development of any kind of mental illness say neurotic behaviour or psychosis which take shape due to some major traumatic experience that an individual undergoes in his/her childhood. Nor is this an attempt to reflect upon the possibility of countering such mental illness. The sole purpose is to “re-define” the contours of mental makeup in childhood by reflecting on the practical usage of some fabricated ploys employed by guardians in the process of “disciplining” their wards. This disciplining mechanism undergoes the process of a “psychical complex”.
Let us take the following example under scrutiny. A small baby is normally put to sleep at night by music or some lullaby. But when this baby becomes a child and is able to understand objects in relation to language, s/he is then put to sleep by invoking some creatures of hellish dimension. In most cases, the cliché is that if s/he does not listen to the parents, the fox/wolf (‘bhow’ is the name for that fear inducing element) would come to devour him/her. This example also serves to justify the prospective behaviour of the child because s/he has to go through a rigorous conflict-resolution process within his/her own psyche to counter the fear inducing image (‘bhow’) of childhood. The psychical complex thus generated would have a negative impact in the mental growth of the child. The fear of the fox or the snake (the ‘long one’ as it is referred to in our society especially during the night) generates a negative response in the child with which s/he has to constantly struggle with.
It is this complex that Daruwalla tries to come to terms with in the poem. The very idea of the wolf nudging its way into the poet’s consciousness and the appearance of the wolf especially during the night as a “throat-catcher” are brilliant testimony to the fear-inducing element that is etched in the form of the wolf. The expression “My mother said/ his ears stand up/ at the fall of dew” is a fitting corollary to the example cited above. However, it is only in the penultimate lines that the poem rises to convey a deeper message. The speaker’s poignant awareness of the slaughtering of the wolves as indicated by the horrid image of the hedge smoking with gun-barrels conveys the atrocity inflicted not only on the wolves but on nature. The burning of the hedges gives the idea that the humans have destroyed the natural habitat of the wolves. This act of wreaking havoc in nature establishes one supreme truth of humanity—selfishness. The poem concludes with the poet’s inability of concocting a similar story for his own daughter.
Suddenly The Tree
The hive slept like Argus
its thousand eyes covered with bees.
The light as it fell through the neem tree
was a marine light, in which
yellow moths set sail
from one perforated shadow to another.
The hive was mystic,
a drugged mantra
with its dark syllables asleep.
As the afternoon wore on
the honey-thieves came
and smoked the bees out
and carved out a honey-laden
crescent for themselves
and left a lump of pocked wax behind.
The bees roamed the house,
too bewildered to sting the children.
At night they slept, clinging
to the tree fork, now scarred with burns.
Sparrows and squirrels, a bird
with a black crest and a red half-moon
for an eyelid bickered over
the waxed remains the next day.
Then with a drone of straining engines
the bees rose like a swarm of passions
from a dying heart, and left.
(Keki N.Daruwalla)
Critical Appreciation
The poem is crafted in response to the enormity of damage that human lives have brought upon nature. Daruwalla’s criticism on the damage inflicted on nature in the poem “Wolf” is seen to be carried forth into this poem with more vibrancy and vigour. The poem begins with a comparison between the inert nature of the bee-hive which is suggestive from the word ‘slept’ with that of the Argus which is a large long-tailed bird with generally brown plumage, especially found in South East Asia and Indonesia.
The poem transcends the ordinary plane of intellectual exploration of an observation when the poet brings in the metaphysical element which seems to brush aside all superficial meanings. This is evident from the metaphorical association of the hive with that of a “drugged mantra”. The idea of mysticism is equally potent as it highlights one quintessential feature of Indian mysticism which always seems to harmonise a fine blend with Nature. This is due to the fact that the Indian philosophers have always seen in nature the potential to uplift and rejuvenate the essential human nature which is normally characterised by morbidity, senile decay, vacuity and purposelessness. Therefore, the hive appears to the speaker as a “mystic”. Again, it can also be argued that the Indian theological belief of the transmigration of the soul is brought into play with the configuration of the journey undertaken by the yellow moths with the first ray of light.
The poem then takes on the critique of a material culture which has long defined humanity. The act of the “honey-thieves” is an instance in point. The violence perpetrated on nature by mankind is given cognizance in the act of smoking out the bees from their natural habitat. The havoc thus created in the natural order for utilitarian benefits is seen in the form of the bees roaming in the house. The pain and agony of losing one’s home is vividly brought out in the case of the bees when the speaker mentions that they were reluctant to let go their abode. The tree has been burnt and smoked which made the bees even more scared least they might not fall into any trap. The ecological stand of the poem also becomes profound as the speaker describes how the sparrows and squirrels fed themselves on the remains of the hive, quite oblivious to what had caused such disorder in the first place.
However, the last lines of the poem serve to draw a conclusive statement regarding the nature of the bees. Unlike humans, they do not have any other source to redress their grievances or to lodge a complaint. Thus, they rose from the remains of the burnt-out hive and left for they now see no sign of a promising future in that burnt-out hive. The comparison is quite apt as the speaker configures their act of flight with that of evaporation. One cannot see passion and how they swirl and rise in the heart. As such, the comparison is bound to be intangible. Thus, the poem is not just a statement on the gargantuan rift caused in nature by the mean- mindedness of the humans but it is equally about nature compensating her loss which is seen in the flight of the bees to set up their hive elsewhere probably in some place devoid of human habitation.
Introducing the poet:
Toru Dutt was born on March 4, 1856 in Calcutta which was then a province of British India. She remained in Calcutta till1869 after which she along with her sister Aru Dutt travelled to France, Italy and England. She did her schooling in France with her sister which is evident in her exceptional hold of French language like her own mother tongue. She was equally proficient to compose both in English and French. Her first volume of poems was originally in the French language which she later translated into English as A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields in 1876. Eight of the poems in this volume were however translated by her sister Aru who too had a poetic spark. It was Edmund Gosse who reviewed the volume in The Examiner in 1977 and recognised her talent as a poet. Although having received a British upbringing, Toru Dutt vehemently criticised the British imperial policy. Her poems are a testimony to her valuing the rootedness of a culture that had been in the zenith of creative excellence. She had left many unpublished works which her father Govind Chunder Dutt later published. Her works include Binaca or the Young Spanish Maiden (1878), Le Journal de Mademoiselle d’Arvers (1879) and Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (1882). In fact, it was her Ancient Ballads that can be seen to be one of the precursors of Indo-Anglian writings and set the ball rolling which later came to be perfected by the Indian poets. Her premature death brought about by consumption (tuberculosis) on August 30, 1877 left a void in the annals of English literature as Edmund Gosse himself wrote in an Introductory Memoir to Ancient Ballads as
She remains a proud Indian even in her death and her poems for the very first time mirrored the myths, culture, tradition and folklore of India to the English world which even compelled a person of Edmund Gosse’s stature to believe that “when the history of the literature of our country comes to be written, there is sure to be a page in it dedicated to this fragile exotic blossom of song”. Hailed as the Keats of Indo-Anglian Literature, Toru Dutt not only shared a similar fate like Keats but also proved that the merit and essence of poetic talent can manifest itself irrespective of age.
Our Casuarina Tree
LIKE a huge Python, winding round and round
The rugged trunk, indented deep with scars,
Up to its very summit near the stars,
A creeper climbs, in whose embraces bound
No other tree could live. But gallantly
The giant wears the scarf, and flowers are hung
In crimson clusters all the boughs among,
Whereon all day are gathered bird and bee;
And oft at nights the garden overflows
With one sweet song that seems to have no close,
Sung darkling from our tree, while men repose.
When first my casement is wide open thrown
At dawn, my eyes delighted on it rest;
Sometimes, and most in winter,—on its crest
A gray baboon sits statue-like alone
Watching the sunrise; while on lower boughs
His puny offspring leap about and play;
And far and near kokilas hail the day;
And to their pastures wend our sleepy cows;
And in the shadow, on the broad tank cast
By that hoar tree, so beautiful and vast,
The water-lilies spring, like snow enmassed.
But not because of its magnificence
Dear is the Casuarina to my soul:
Beneath it we have played; though years may roll,
O sweet companions, loved with love intense,
For your sakes, shall the tree be ever dear.
Blent with your images, it shall arise
In memory, till the hot tears blind mine eyes!
What is that dirge-like murmur that I hear
Like the sea breaking on a shingle-beach?
It is the tree’s lament, an eerie speech,
That haply to the unknown land may reach.
Unknown, yet well-known to the eye of faith!
Ah, I have heard that wail far, far away
In distant lands, by many a sheltered bay,
When slumbered in his cave the water-wraith
And the waves gently kissed the classic shore
Of France or Italy, beneath the moon,
When earth lay trancèd in a dreamless swoon:
And every time the music rose,—before
Mine inner vision rose a form sublime,
Thy form, O Tree, as in my happy prime
I saw thee, in my own loved native clime.
Therefore I fain would consecrate a lay
Unto thy honor, Tree, beloved of those
Who now in blessed sleep for aye repose,—
Dearer than life to me, alas, were they!
Mayst thou be numbered when my days are done
With deathless trees—like those in Borrowdale,
Under whose awful branches lingered pale
“Fear, trembling Hope, and Death, the skeleton,
And Time the shadow;” and though weak the verse
That would thy beauty fain, oh, fain rehearse,
May Love defend thee from Oblivion’s curse.
(Toru Dutt)
Critical Appreciation:
Toru Dutt’s phenomenal descriptive prowess as a poet gets ample demonstration in the poem “Our Casuarina Tree”. The poem is crafted much in the manner of English romantic poetry which also serves to highlight the tremendous impact it exerted on the early Indian poets. The poem begins with a powerful simile of a python which is compared with that of the creepers that climbs around the bulk of the tree. In an interesting manner, Dutt visualises the tree wearing a scarf as flowers hung around it in crimson clusters. The nocturnal music of nature is evident in the song of the darkling which guarantees activity as against the inactivity of humans. The reader is bound to find some kind of intertextual reference especially in Thomas Hardy’s poem “The Darkling Thrush” where a similar scenario is presented.
Toru Dutt’s treatment of nature bears an imitative aspect due to her preoccupation with the romantic sensibility. However, this aspect should not be considered as a failing standard of her poetry as all poets tend to get influenced by their preceding poets. Harold Bloom in his influential book The Anxiety of Influence goes on to demarcate the relational fluidity that characterise poetry as an outpouring of one individual sensibility that shares some kind of affinity with other sensibilities. If Bloom’s postulation on the tendency of the poets falling prey to past works, thereby influenced by them in turn, is considered to be true, then it would be a very parochial approach to judge Dutt’s poetic craft to be basically imitative in nature.
Dutt projects the tree as being relational to her growing up. In other words, the poet tries to allocate a pride of place to nature parallel to the great saga of human evolution. The second paragraph brings in the happy images of nature as that of the grey baboon along with its “puny offsprings”, the kokilas which sang all day long, the sleepy cows slouching towards the pasture and the water-lilies that blooms in the shadow of the tree. In one sense, the Casuarina tree acts as a mother. The poet is overcome by a deep sense of yearning for her childhood as she recollects the memory when she and her friends basked and played in the cool shade of the tree. Therefore she remarks,
Dear is the Casuarina to my soul:
Beneath it we have played; though years may roll,
O sweet companions, loved with love intense,
For your sakes, shall the tree be ever dear.
It becomes all the more intriguing to find Dutt investing nature with a speech of her own. The expression “What is that dirge-like murmur that I hear/Like the sea breaking on a shingle- beach/It is the tree’s lament, an eerie speech,” justifies the possibility of nature having a spirit which brings in a Wordsworthian echo. The allusion becomes more pronounced in the next stanza when the poet remarks,
Ah, I have heard that wail far, far away
In distant lands, by many a sheltered bay,
The allusion is undoubtedly to the famous poem “The Solitary Reaper”. However, the idea of pain is bolstered by the choice of diction like ‘lament”, “wail” and “dirge” which indicates the psychological state of the poet in retrieving the happy memories of childhood. Like Wordsworth in “Immortality Ode”, Dutt too is yearning for her lost childhood. The Casuarina tree therefore becomes a symbol of regeneration which heightens the poetic sensibility of the poet. In a sense, the tree becomes a classic obsession of the poet due to the magnitude of the psychological impact. The romantic influence becomes more accentuated when the poet explicitly refers to the power of the secondary imagination which enables her to see the tree in a “sublime form”. This is undoubtedly the bearings of Coleridge’s theory postulated in his book Biographia Literaria where he distinguishes primary imagination, secondary imagination and fancy. The theory that poets have the power to retrace images of experiences by dint of their immediate access to secondary imagination is proved by the following expressions:
Mine inner vision rose a form sublime,
Thy form, O Tree, as in my happy prime
I saw thee, in my own loved native clime.
The last stanza highlights the significance of the tree in that the poet steps in the line of a visionary when she states the life expectancy of the tree in relation to that of the humans. The poet believes and is convinced that the tree would definitely outlive her as it has outlived many of her companions. The tree is visualised as an agent so powerful that even death could not dare to touch it. This idea of empowering the Casuarina tree is unique and herein lies the difference in Dutt’s treatment of Nature. The Casuarina tree stands for Nature; it is a microcosm of a macrocosm. Dutt deliberately projects Time and Death in a puny light in order to stretch the metaphorical implication which the tree carries with it. The tree is in fact Mother Nature in its pristine form and therefore permanent as against the ephemeral nature of the poet and her companions. The penultimate line of the poem also brings in a Shakespearean echo although unlike Shakespeare, the poet acknowledges the frailty of her verse to preserve the primordial quality of the tree. The expression “and though weak the verse/That would thy beauty fain, oh, fain rehearse,/May Love defend thee from Oblivion’s curse” arouses the familiarity of the reader to Shakespeare’s celebration of friendship in Sonnet 65 where he states “That in black ink my love will still shine bright”.
Sarojini Naidu: Life and Works
- Sarojini Naidu was born in February 13, 1978 in Hyderabad. She hailed from a family of academician and scientists, her father Dr. Aghornath Chattopadhyaya being a scientist himself and the founder of the Nizam College of Hyderabad while her mother was Mrs. Varasundari, an accomplished Bengali Poet.
- Naidu’s vast readings and inspiration from her father made her well versed in Hindu mythology, Urdu and Persian folklore.
- While still a student, she published her first poem “The Song of a Dream” being highly
- influenced by the works of English Romantic poets like Byron and Keats.
- Came under the enervating influence of her literary mentors like Arthur Symons and Edmund Gosse who made it a point to give her an identity which would endear her towards her own origin.
- It was in fact her correspondence with Mahatma Gandhi whom she called “Mickey Mouse” of Indian politics along with the gruesome picture of Indian colonial situation that transformed her completely from a romantic singer of life’s beautiful peculiarities to a determined and impassioned fighter for her country’s liberation.
- Her published works include The Golden Threshold (1905) followed by the subsequent publications of The Bird of Time, The Broken Wings, The Magic Trees, The Wizard Mask and
A Treasury of Poems.
On March 2, 1949, this ‘Nightingale of India’ breathed her last.
Themes and Issues explored in the Poems: Coromandel Fishers
- The idea of sensuality is quite profound as the crux of the poem is built on the principle of a reciprocal relation between Nature and the human world of which the fishermen are just but a part.
- The idea of human solidarity even in its lowest level is seen in the comradeship of the ‘brother’ fishermen.
- Incredible affinity of the fishermen with the sea is evinced by the fabricated romantic ideal of the sea being the mother, the cloud as the brother and the waves as comrades.
- The harmony between man and nature is finally achieved when Naidu makes the fishermen privy to the eternal marriage of the sky with the sea. This union is brought forward by the exemplary use of a sexual imagery in the form of the low sky mating with the sea.
- Naidu here not only tries to spiritualise nature; she goes a step further in voicing out the elemental passion of Nature.
In Praise of Henna:
- Naidu harps upon the Indian traditional ritual of adorning the hands and feet of the bride with henna or mehandi which is a red dye used mostly as a cosmetic item.
- Act of grinding in mortars is something that is intrinsically related to the Indian herbal
- science of ayurveda.
- A celebration of the Indian ritual as well as a glorification of the herbal science that has long been the guard of honour of Indian medical science.
- The title therefore justifiably suits the exigencies of Indian marriage and also throws significant light on the importance of nature in the daily drama of human life.
Poetic Devices/Structure/Stylistic Features:
- A deep sense of romanticism as reflected in the expressions such as “wakening skies”, “wind lies asleep in the arms of the dawn like a child”, “leaping wealth of the tide”, “kiss of the spray and the dance of the wild foam’s glee” and so forth in Coromandel Fishers.
- the symbolic arrival of the Kokila bird in In Praise of Henna
- striking metaphors of “betel-nut’s red for lips that are sweet” and “tilka’s red for the brow of a bride” denoting the qualitative standard of the male (that is the would-be groom) habituated to chewing paan, while the redness of the ‘tilka’ and the “lily-like fingers and feet” demonstrates the fragility of the female.
- the colour ‘red’ is used as a connective link between both the male and the female—that is to say, redness of henna/mehandi for the female bride and the redness that emanates from the chewing of betel-nut on the lips of the groom.
Keki N. Daruwalla: Life and Works
- Keki N. Daruwalla (born 1937) is a police officer by profession.
- Received the prestigious Sahitya Academy Award in 1984 for his anthology The Keeper of the Dead.
- He has published twelve volumes of poetry—Under Orion (1970), Apparition in April (1971) and Crossing of Rivers (1976), Winter Poems (1980), The Keeper of the Dead (1982), Landscapes (1987), A Summer of Tigers (1995), Night River (2000), Map Maker (2002), The Scarecrow and the Ghost (2004), Collected Poems 1970-2005 (2006) and The Glass-blower: Selected Poems (2008).
- Poetry, for him, is first personal, exploratory, at times even therapeutic which helps in coming to terms with one’s interior world.
Themes and Issues explored in the Poems: Gulzaman’s Son
- Daruwalla through his poetic persona sketches an unusually appealing picture of human life and solidarity.
- Daruwalla is known for his exceptional ability to describe scenes and incidents in great detail. Yet, he is dispassionate in the rendering of his observations and a fitting testimony to this is his circumstantial description of a sequence of scenes and the event of the birth of a lamb with great accuracy.
- Gulzaman’s excessive love for his sheep is primarily because of his extraordinary temperament and ability to see and feel the nuances of innocence and simplicity in his ewe.
- Both the human and the animal world are shown to be affected by the vicissitudes of nature.
- Daruwalla delineates nature that has turned against life be that of the humans or the animals.
- Daruwalla brings forth the human element in Gulzaman which is ironically missing in the society to which he truly belong.
Wolf
- “Wolf” is crafted around the mythical significance of the wolf image that is normally used by the parents to control the behaviour of their children.
- creates a Blakeian atmosphere.
- Daruwalla is more concerned about the behavioural disposition of the wolf as a symbol of awe and fear.
- The practical usage of some fabricated ploys employed by guardians in the process of “disciplining” their wards.
- The very idea of the wolf nudging its way into the poet’s consciousness and the appearance of the wolf especially during the night as a “throat-catcher” are brilliant testimony to the fear- inducing element that is etched in the form of the wolf.
Suddenly the Tree
- The poem is crafted in response to the enormity of damage that human lives have brought upon nature.
- The poem transcends the ordinary plane of intellectual exploration of an observation when the poet brings in the metaphysical element which seems to brush aside all superficial meanings.
- The metaphorical association of the hive with that of a “drugged mantra”
- The hive appears to the speaker as a “mystic”.
- The Indian theological belief of the transmigration of the soul is brought into play with the configuration of the journey undertaken by the yellow moths with the first ray of light.
- The violence perpetrated on nature by mankind is given cognizance in the act of smoking out the bees from their natural habitat.
- The ecological stand of the poem also becomes profound as the speaker describes how the sparrows and squirrels fed themselves on the remains of the hive.
Poetic Devices/Structure/Stylistic Features:
- Daruwalla’s treatment of nature is a fine mixture of emotional vitality and practical necessity and it is this idea that brands him as a quintessential nature poet.
- Gulzaman’s isolated life and the jibes of society at his virility are accurately represented in addition to the reference to the pine-hut of the stone-breaker where Gulzaman use to sleep.
- The emotive rendering of the ewe snuggling and bleating a ‘thin tremolo of love’ that is ‘blanketed by gutturals of pain’ not only unveils Daruwalla’s adept handling of the foreign lexicon and diction.
- The speaker’s poignant awareness of the slaughtering of the wolves as indicated by the horrid image of the hedge smoking with gun-barrels conveys the atrocity inflicted not only on the wolves but on nature.
- This act of wreaking havoc in nature establishes one supreme truth of humanity— selfishness.
- The idea of mysticism is equally potent as it highlights one quintessential feature of Indian mysticism which always seems to harmonise a fine blend with Nature.
- The pain and agony of losing one’s home is vividly brought out in the case of the bees when the speaker mentions that they were reluctant to let go their abode.
- A statement on the gargantuan rift caused in nature by the mean-mindedness of the humans but it is equally about nature compensating her loss which is seen in the flight of the bees to set up their hive elsewhere probably in some place devoid of human habitation.
Toru Dutt: Life and Works
- Toru Dutt was born on March 4, 1856 in Calcutta which was then a province of British India.
- She did her schooling in France with her sister which is evident in her exceptional hold of French language like her own mother tongue.
- Her first volume of poems was originally in the French language which she later translated into English as A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields in 1876.
- It was Edmund Gosse who reviewed the volume in The Examiner in 1977 and recognised her talent as a poet.
- Her poems are a testimony to her valuing the rootedness of a culture that had been in the zenith of creative excellence.
- Her works include Binaca or the Young Spanish Maiden (1878), Le Journal de Mademoiselle d’Arvers (1879) and Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan (1882).
- Her premature death brought about by consumption (tuberculosis) on August 30, 1877 left a void in the annals of English literature.
- Hailed as the Keats of Indo-Anglian Literature, Toru Dutt not only shared a similar fate like Keats but also proved that the merit and essence of poetic talent can manifest itself irrespective of age.
Themes and Issues explored in the Poem: Our Casaurina Tree
- Dutt visualises the tree wearing a scarf as flowers hung around it in crimson clusters.
- Toru Dutt’s treatment of nature bears an imitative aspect due to her preoccupation with the romantic sensibility.
- Dutt projects the tree as being relational to her growing up.
- The poet tries to allocate a pride of place to nature parallel to the great saga of human evolution.
- In one sense, the Casuarina tree acts as a mother.
- A deep sense of yearning for her childhood as the speaker recollects the memory when she and her friends basked and played in the cool shade of the tree.
- Dutt investing nature with a speech of her own.
- The possibility of nature having a spirit brings in a Wordsworthian echo.
- The tree becomes a classic obsession of the poet due to the magnitude of the psychological impact.
- The tree is visualised as an agent so powerful that even death could not dare to touch it.
- The Casuarina tree stands for Nature; it is a microcosm of a macrocosm.
- Dutt deliberately projects Time and Death in a puny light in order to stretch the metaphorical implication which the tree carries with it.
Poetic Devices/Structure/Stylistic Features:
- The poem begins with a powerful simile of a python which is compared with that of the creepers that climbs around the bulk of the tree.
- The allusion is undoubtedly to the famous poem “The Solitary Reaper”.
- The reader is bound to find some kind of intertextual reference especially in Thomas Hardy’s poem “The Darkling Thrush” where a similar scenario is presented.
- Like Wordsworth in “Immortality Ode”, Dutt too is yearning for her lost childhood. The Casuarina tree therefore becomes a symbol of regeneration which heightens the poetic sensibility of the poet.
- The romantic influence becomes more accentuated when the poet explicitly refers to the power of the secondary imagination which enables her to see the tree in a “sublime form”.
- Dutt deliberately projects Time and Death in a puny light in order to stretch the metaphorical implication which the tree carries with it.
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Reference
- Bloom, Harold. The Anxiety of Influence: A Theory of Poetry, Second Edition, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997
- King, Bruce. Modern Indian Poetry in English. Revised Edition. Oxford University Press: New Delhi, (1987) 2001rpt
- Mahanta, Pona (et al.). Poems Old and New, Chennai:Macmillan India limited, 2001.
- Murali, N. and Natanam, G. “Sarojini Naidu as a Nature Poet”. Language in India, V. 8, No. 11, November, 2008
- Naik, M.K. The History of Indian English Literature, Sahitya Academy: New Delhi, (1982), 2004 rpt
- Nabar, Vrinda. Keki N. Daruwalla: Poetry and a National Culture in V.A.Sahane (eds.) Indian Poetry: A Critical Assessment, Macmillan: New Delhi, 1984
- www.rockpebblesindia.com/pdf/jan-june2011
- www.amazon.in/A-History-Indian-English-Literature/dp/8126018720