Poetry
Rabindranath Tagore : From Gitanjali: Heaven of Freedom
Heaven of Freedom is taken from Gitanjali (Song Offerings), a collection of 103 English poems. This poem is more like a prayer. It was written towards the early part of the 20th century when the struggle for political Independence was going on in India.
This poem is like an offering to God, a prayer where the poet prays for a country which is a heaven of freedom. He prays for an atmosphere of fearlessness, a place where people can walk without the fear of being arrested.
“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high
Where knowledge is free”
In India people had lost their freedom in all spheres under the British rule. They had no self respect. They were divided on the basis of religion so that the British colonisers could rule over Indians for a longer period of time. The poet is referring to a nation where the people can hold their head high and will have dignity and self respect.
According to him knowledge should be free to all. There should be no division among the people on the basis of caste or creed and no monopoly in providing education.
Tagore wants the people to work with their hearts which is possible only if their minds are free. Further he goes on to pray for a world which is not fragmented or broken in the name of religious, cultural, economic or political issues. He longs for an undivided world where there is tolerance among the people, a world where people have the courage to speak truth and hold truth at any cost
” Where the mind is led forward by thee
Into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake”.
Tagore addresses God as the Father of the Universe and humbly requests him to awaken our country to such a heaven of freedom where thought is not limited by the age old customs and superstitious beliefs.
Silent Steps
Rabindranath Tagore is a man of versatile genius and achievement. He is a poet par excellence. He was awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize for his English Gitanjali in 1913. Gitanjali is an immortal work of art. It is a prayer to God. It consists of poems which are 'offerings of the finite to the infinite'. It's central theme is the soul's voyage to eternity.
Silent Steps in Gitanjali reveals the imminence of God. God is imminent. We may not feel his all pervasive influence but he is present at all places and at all times. All changes that take place in nature are His manifestation. God lives with his people all the time:
Every moment and every age, every day and every night,
He comes, comes ever comes,"
God is ageless and deathless. He is all powerful. The poet has sung many songs in all kinds of mood. He has proclaimed the truth that God has been coming since time immemorial.
God comes through the dangerous forest path in the form of sweet fragrance in the sunny month of April. He comes in the form of thunder in the dark nights of July. He comes along with his people in danger and darkness.
The poet felt the presence of God in sorrow and happiness. God did not allow him to endure pain and sufferings alone. Instead, He lives and dwells with him
"In sorrow after sorrow, it is His steps that press upon my heart and
it is the golden touch of His face that makes my joy to shine".
Thus, the poem tells the truth that God is omnipresent. All things in nature reveal His presence. We can also feel his divine touch silently in our everyday life.
Aurobindo Ghosh : The Tiger and the Deer
Sri Aurobindo is one of the supreme masters in Indian English Literature. His poetry may be divided into two broad groups, i.e., poetry of action and poetry of meditation. He is not only a poet but also a philosopher, short story writer and dramatist. He gives charming descriptions of nature in his writings. Savitri is the epic written by Aurobindo. It marks the culmination of his poetic career.
Aurobindo's short poem 'The Tiger and the Deer' is a didactic poem. It is a contrast between good and evil, innocence and experience, and life and death.
The poem begins with a description of the tiger. The tiger crouches and slouches brilliantly though the green forest. It has gleaming eyes, mighty chest and soft soundless paws.
"Brilliant, crouching, slouching, what crept
through the green heart of the forest,
Gleaming eyes and mighty chest and soft
soundless paws of grandeur or murder?"
Generally, people are afraid of the tiger. They hate it because it is rough and dangerous. In the poem, the world of tiger stands for death, darkness and arrogance.
The innocent deer drinks water from the great pool in the forest. It is unaware of the tiger's plan of attack. The tiger crouches slowly to attack the deer:
“...... the great beast crouched and crept, and crept
and crouched a last time, noiseless, fatal".
Then the fierce tiger has leaped up over the deer and torn it to pieces. The deer died pathetically thinking about its mate.
"Destroyed, the mild harmless beauty by
the strong cruel beauty in Nature"
The deer in the poem suggests innocence, softness and love. The killing of the deer by the tiger suggests the death and destruction of healthy values of life by the cruelty of modern civilization.
The poet closes the poem with a note of optimism. He says that in spite of the various blows of death and darkness, life is a thing to be enjoyed. Sufferings are not eternal. He teaches the lesson that those who harm others will be destroyed like the mammoth. The mammoth shook the plains of Asia once upon a time. But it is extinct now. Since the tiger kills and harms other animals, the same fate of mammoth would come to it. But then the deer would drink without any fear in the cool ponds of the forest. The poet beautifully tells,
"The mighty perish in their might The slam survive the slayer".
Thus, the poem expresses the poet's longing for a peaceful and harmless world.
A.K. Ramanujam : In the Zoo
AK. Ramanujam is the first contemporary Indian English poet to have achieved a remarkable break through in cross-fertilising English with native literary traditions. In the Zoo (a tour with comments) is a satirical poem with a humorous tinge.
Ironically, the poem, In the Zoo, speaks only of storks. The storks are described as scavenger birds. They are fit symbols for Calcutta or Madras, which are filled with filth. The storks, according to Ramanujam, stand erect on their long legs and look dignified. They look slightly vulgar. They come in three shades: i) faded black like the Madras lawyers; ii) grey and iii) dirty white like grandmother's curd.
The storks are noisy and heavy when they take off. It reminds the poet of his father. The noise that comes from the flapping of wings is compared to the sound that comes from the father's broken umbrella. Three ribs of the umbrella were broken by his sons on a fencing match and three other ribs were broken by the previous year wind.
The storks circle quietly in the sky with motionless wings. It fills the trans- parent sky with its slow, sleepy movements. It reminds the poet of the father's magic carpet story told on a rainy day. That was a rainy day. Water leaked through the roof into the kitchen. The mother was ill and children walked round the kitchen noisily with pattering feet. As they could not sleep the father told the magic carpet story.
The poem satirizes the filth of Calcutta and Madras. It makes fun of Madras lawyers. It also highlights the poverty and poor health of the family, may be the poet considers his family, a zoo.
The poem abounds with effective Indian words, phrases and comparison. He is truly an Indian poet who represents Indian culture and tradition.
Kamala Das : Dance of the Eunuchs
Kamala Das is India's poet laureate The Dance of the Eunuch is found in the collection Summer in Calcutta (1965). The poem is an eloquent expression of barrenness of Kamala Das' loveless life.
The poetess begins with a line: -
'It was not, so hot, before the eunuchs came to dance".
The climate changes when they came to dance. It is not a matter of concern for them. They dance to the sound of the cymbals and their anklets jingle and jingle without any rhythm. All this happens under the gulmohur tree.
The Eunuchs were having green tattoos on their cheeks and jasmines in their hair Some of them were dark and some were fair. Their songs were harsh due to their coarse voice. They sing of 'lovers dying' and 'children left unborn' because marriage and getting children are remote possibilities for them.
They make long loved cries and dance by twisting their body in 'vacant ecstasy'. There is no real happiness in their life. Their life is empty and hollow without any purpose. Their limbs were not evenly shaped. They are like half- burnt logs from funeral pyres. Their life is full of drought and rottenness. They have no work to do in the society.
Even the crows watch their dance silently. Children are afraid of their dance:
"All were watching these poor creature convulsions'.
Their dance is far from being rhythmic. The eunuchs are termed as 'poor creatures'. Everything ends when rain came. Bad smell also came along with the rain.
Thus, the poem reflects the sad plight of the eunuchs in the society. It ends without any ray of hope.