Ecology -Ramanujan

This poem, ‘Ecology’ is taken from Ramanujan’s third volume of poems, ‘Second Sight’, published in 1986. The speaker seems to be the poet himself or some imaginary person who is loyally devoted to his mother. He is very angry because his mother has a severe attack of migraine; a very bad kind of headache, often causing a person to vomit; which is caused by the fragrance of the pollen of the flower of the Red Champak every time it is in bloom. The fragrance is heavy and suffocating as the yellow pollen spreads everywhere. Even the doors of the speaker’s house cannot prevent the strong smell from entering the house. The walls of the house are able to absorb almost everything-the sounds, sights, the human voices, the harsh sounds produced when new shoes are worn. But they cannot stop the fog of pollen dust from the Champak trees.
            

The loving son therefore decides to cut down the tree, but he is prevented from doing so by his mother who sees the positive side of the tree in her garden. She says that the tree is as old as her and had been fertilized by the droppings of a passing bird by chance which is considered to be a very good omen. The positive side of it is that the tree provides many basketful of flowers to be offered to her gods and to ‘her daughters and daughter’s daughters’ every year, although the tree would give a terrible migraine to one line of cousins as a legacy. The yellow pollen fog is the yellow dust of pollen carried in the air which is thick and heavy like fog which covers the earth.

            
This poem portrays Ramanujan’s strong interest in the family as a very important theme of his poetic craft. His memories of the past would inevitably bring pictures of his family, especially his mother who is self sacrificing. There is also a reference to his Hindu heritage as he mentions the gods and the ancient beliefs in the poem. The sense of irony is indicated when the mother very angrily protests the idea of cutting down the tree even though she is suffering very badly from the migraine caused by it. She has a kind of emotional attachment to the tree, saying that it is as old as herself.            


‘Ecology is a poem which could be read as one single sentence. However, each stanza has one particular idea. There is a casual connection between the ideas and they flow from one stanza to the next. ‘Flash her temper’; an instance of the use of irony because she is very angry at the idea of having the tree cut down. The actual meaning of the word ‘Ecology’ is not followed here but the poet seems to convey the thought that a particular kind of tree may have both negative and positive factors and therefore it need not be pulled down.

The Professor - Nissim Ezekiel

The Professor by Nissim Ezekiel is a satirical poem written in the form of a conversation between a professor and his student. A satire is way of criticizing a person, an idea or something where the poet uses humour to point out their faults and weaknesses. Here, the professor makes fun of himself by the way he speaks or thinks. A professor is someone who should be proper in his subject or the medium he teaches. But the professor in The Professor is caricatured because of his erroneous dialect. A Professor can also be called a monologue because one can find that the professor speaks but listener does not say a word. The poem is composed in Indian English and the poet mocks Indians who finds prestigious to speak in English, even when they are not so good in it, rather than in their mother tongue.

POEM IN DETAIL:
(Lines1-11) The poem, The Professor begins with a question, ‘Remember me?’. The question is from a retired Geography professor to one of his former student. He then introduces himself as Professor Sheth who had once taught Geography to that student. Then he describes his current position, his family and his health. He tells him that his wife has passed away few years back and by God’s will, all his children ‘are well settled in life.’ He also mentions that one of his sons is a Bank Manager and another is a Sales Manager. To describe their social and financial condition, the retired professor says they both own cars. Then he mentions about his third son whom he considers as the black sheep of the family.
(Lines 12-21) The professor then talks about his daughters, Sarala and Tarala. He says that they both are married and leading a happy life. His son-in-laws ‘are very nice boys.’ The professor then proudly tells his student that he has eleven grandchildren. He even asks his student how many issues he has. The student probably says three when the professor says people are going in for family planning these days which is good.
The professor keeps on talking. He talks about the changing times and the importance of change. He talks about how the whole world is changing along with India. He then talks about the change in values. Old values are been replaced by new values.
(Lines 22-36) The professor now talks a bit about himself. He says that he hardly go out because of his old age. Then he says his ‘health is O.K’ but he does have usual aches and pains. He is not suffering from diabetes, blood pressure or heart disease. He says proudly that he is healthy because of the good habits that he has cultivated from his youth.
He even enquires about his student’s health and is happy when he comes to know that the student is in good health. The professor reveals his age, he says that he is sixty nine and hopes to live for a hundred years. He jokes with his student that the latter was like a stick earlier but now he has gained weight and become a ‘man of weight and consequence.’ Finally, the professor asks him to pay a visit to his home if he ever comes near to his dwelling place.

Toba Tek Singh :Sadat Hasan Manto

"Toba Tek Singh" is surely the most famous story about Partition, and very possibly the best one. I'd argue that it is in fact the best, and that most of the other good candidates are also by Manto. This story was one of his last ones; it was published in "Phundne" (Lahore: Maktabah-e Jadid) in 1955, the year of his death.
Every reader at once realizes that it's a powerful satire, and also a bitter indictment of the political processes and behavior patterns that produced Partition. But the author's brilliant craftsmanship lies partly in the fact that there's not a single word in the story that tells us so. The story presents itself as a deadpan, factual, non-judgmental chronicle of the behavior of certain lunatics in an insane asylum in Lahore. It thus shares the conspicuously effective technique of Jonathan Swift's *"A Modest Proposal"*.
The story is told by a reliable but not omniscient narrator who speaks as a Pakistani, and seems to be a Lahori. The narration is for the most part so straightforward that the narrator's voice seems even naive (or faux-naif, depending on how we want to read it). The narrator reports to us with apparent matter-of-factness a series of events that are not quite as straightforward as they appear. The time frame, for one thing, is oddly jagged. The first two paragraphs take us to the Wagah border itself, where the lunatics are described as having already arrived. Then we drop abruptly into a very long flashback: we return to an earlier time, when the inmates in the Lahore asylum first learn of the proposed exchange. We follow their reactions and behavior, until at the very end of the story we once again arrive at the time and place of the first two paragraphs.
A much greater oddity is that the whole story, as we're told in the first sentence, takes place "two or three years after Partition," so it seems highly implausible that not only the lunatics, but the people around them as well, can't figure out where Toba Tek Singh is; the district isn't even anywhere near the border, so after "two or three years" there could hardly be any confusion. But it's a tribute to Manto's narrative skill that on the first reading, this question doesn't even occur-- and perhaps not on the second or third reading, either.
We don't meet the main character until well into the story, when we've gone through an illustrative sequence of other lunatics. The narrator reports that everyone calls the main character "Toba Tek Singh" (though in the whole course of the story we never actually hear anyone doing so); but the narrator himself always refers to him by his full name, Bishan Singh. Does he do this pointedly, as a sign of respect, and to differentiate himself from the others? And when he seeks to interpret Bishan Singh's outbursts, he always qualifies his suggestions with a respectful "perhaps," to show that he is not privy to Bishan Singh's inner life, but is only speculating.
Whatever the reason, the narrator's carefulness in this respect enables him to set up a wonderfully elegant, haunting, ambiguous conclusion. After Bishan Singh gives a single loud shriek and collapses, the narrator locates him in a no-man's-land between the two new nations' barbed-wire borders. My translation is entirely literal: "In between, on that piece of ground that had no name, lay Toba Tek Singh." We know of course that the person Bishan Singh lay there. But since the narrator never calls this person by that name, he's able to force us to the additional reading that the real location of the village Toba Tek Singh is between the two new states' sharply demarcated borders. But if the village is there, then in what sense exactly, and in whose eyes? Is Bishan Singh sane or mad, conscious or delirious, alive or dead? With wonderful subtlety and literary restraint, the author allows us-- and thus also forces us-- to invent our own ending.
Because of its simple and deliberately repetitive use of language, the story also provides excellent reading practice for students learning Urdu. My translation is almost as literal as it can possibly be. This is partly for the convenience of students, and partly because I love translations that try to bring you right up against the very grammar, the very sentence structures, of the original.
And my translation is literal also as a form of reaction against Khalid Hassan's extremely free one, which is widely available in print; see for example Mottled Dawn: Fifty Sketches and Stories of Partition (New Delhi, Penguin India, 1997, pp. 1-10). Khalid Hassan, who wrote such a fine and sympathetic *memoir* of Manto, apparently felt quite free to "transcreate" his literary idol's greatest story. As only one example, though a particularly irritating one, here is the start of section [08]. The original is, like the whole of the story, stark and simple in almost a minimalist way; my translation reflects those qualities, as you can easily check for yourself in the Urdu text:

He had one daughter who, growing a finger-width taller every month, in fifteen years had become a young girl. Bishan Singh didn't even recognize her. When she was a child, she wept when she saw her father; when she'd grown up, tears still flowed from her eyes.

Khalid Hassan, by comparison, takes away some information that the author wanted us to have (the poignant emphasis on the daughter's gradual growing up over the years, and her continuing silent grief), and adds a fair amount of other "information" that he himself invents (including a whole final sentence of obtrusive padding):

When he was first confined, he had left an infant daughter behind, now a pretty young girl of fifteen. She would come occasionally, and sit in front of him with tears rolling down her cheeks. In the strange world that he inhabited, hers was just another pretty face.

I'm sure Khalid Hassan did this sort of damage with no evil intentions, but only carelessly, and perhaps seeking somehow to "help" or please the English reader. 

In Custody -Anita Desai

"This is a novel about a small-town man, Deven, who gets the opportunity to go interview his hero, the great poet Nur, the greatest living Urdu poet. Having always loved Urdu poetry and missed the chance to be an Urdu language professor, he is charmed into going to Delhi the big city. Even though he shrinks at the idea of possibly being exploited by his sharp and selfish friend Murad, the dream of meeting Nur draws him on. So he sets off on a number of adventures on Sundays, the one free day that he should have spent with his wife and son. 

What Deven finds at his hero's house is misery and confusion. Having sunk into a senile old age, surrounded by fawning sycophants, married to a younger calculating wife who wants to use his glory to win herself fame, Nur is not what he once was. Or perhaps he always was this. 

Deven, a shrinking and weak man, is somehow drawn to this old poet, wishing to help and protect him even as he cannot defend himself. Perhaps it is the tie of Urdu poetry that he remembers from his treasured times as a child with his father. 

In order to save the name and works of Nur for posterity, he decides to record his voice on tape for his small-town university. In the process Deven is exploited monetarily and emotionally, where Nur's family and hangers on demand money to keep themselves happy, Murad refuses to pay him for submissions to his self-proclaimed literary magazine. His wife Sarla is indignant at his time away, his fellow professors think he is having an affair in Delhi or push him to get a taping of Nur's voice. The saddest part is the result of the sessions. Drunk and encouraged by his admirers who follow him along to the sessions, Nur offers nothing new or novel. 

O Captain! MY Captain! - Walt Whitman [Line-by-line explanation]

Line by Line explanation.

Lines 1-2

O CAPTAIN! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;

• The speaker is shouting out to his captain (“O Captain!”) that they’ve finally made it home after a frightening trip.
• They were on a ship that survived, or “weathered,” strong winds (a.k.a. “racks”).
• They’re probably tired after such a grueling voyage, but apparently they’ve succeeded in their mission, or what the speaker calls their “prize.” Whatever this mission or prize was, we know that it wasn’t easy to get.

Lines 3-4

          The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:

• So the speaker is a sailor on the ship, and the ship isn’t just yet safe in the harbor (which would be a good place to safely “park” a boat).
• But the boat is in sight of the land, and there are people on the shore cheering and ringing church bells as they approach (hip-hip-hooray!).
• The people on the shore watch the boat come in.
• Although keel usually refers to a ridge that goes along the underside of the boat, the word can also refer to the boat as a whole, as it does in line 4. When a part of something is used to stand for a whole (for example, “all hands on deck” means all the people should be on deck, not just their hands), this is called a synecdoche. 
• In contrast to the happy people on land, the boat is described like a ghost ship: “grim and daring.”
• The speaker is foreshadowing, subtly telling the reader in advance that something is going to happen and it isn’t going to be pretty.

Lines 5-8

But O heart! heart! heart!
   O the bleeding drops of red,
      Where on the deck my Captain lies,
         Fallen cold and dead.

• The sailor calls out again, but this time it isn’t for the captain.
• He belts out the word “heart,” and this could mean that he is shouting out a) to his captain to keep heart, as in not to give up, or b) to his own heart, as if in pain. 
• We think you can read this either way. If you read it the first way, with the heart representing the captain’s will, then you’re dealing with a symbol, as some part of the captain is used to represent an abstract quality (his will or courage).
• If you read it the second way, though, and think the speaker is calling out to his own heart, then you’ve got an apostrophe on your hands, friend-o. This is a call to an abstract thing that can’t possibly answer back. It’s a cliché to speak from the heart, but, really, hearts have no mouths, so they don’t speak very well.
• When you think heart, though, you do think blood. It turns out that there is a lot of it here.
• All of a sudden, drops of blood are on the deck of the ship, and the speaker notices that his captain is dead. Bummer
  
  
  

  Lines 9-12

  O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
  Rise up–for you the flag is flung–for you the bugle trills;
  For you bouquets and ribbon’d wreaths–for you the shores a-crowding;
  For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
  • The sailor comes to the dead captain’s side and begs him to rise again. Because the speaker is addressing someone (or something) who can no longer respond to him, this is known as an apostrophe.
  • And why should the captain re-animate his dead self? Well, the speaker says that all the people on shore are cheering for the captain. 
  • The sailor lists the ways in which the people are celebrating: raising the flag, playing horns, holding flowers, and calling out to the captain. It’s a real hullaballoo.
  • To say that the crowd has “eager faces” is another use of a synecdoche. It’s not just their faces that are eager, really. Their faces are used to represent the whole of their excited attitude toward this captain. They think he’s a righteous dude.

  Lines 13-16

  Here Captain! dear father!
    This arm beneath your head;
      It is some dream that on the deck,
        You’ve fallen cold and dead.
• The sailor takes the dead captain in his arms and calls the captain “father,” although the man probably isn’t really his father.
• Still, the speaker has intense feelings for this man, whose head is on his arm. That’s probably not a relaxing position to lie in, but sadly the captain doesn’t feel the discomfort.
• The speaker says he must be dreaming. He can’t accept the reality that the captain died just as they reached home.

Lines 17-18

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;

• The dead captain, unsurprisingly, doesn’t respond to the sailor’s cries. With another synecdoche, the speaker focuses on the captain’s lips to represent his general state of death.
• Again, the captain is referred to as the speaker’s father, underscoring their bond. 
• Sadly, the color has left the captain’s face and he has no pulse. Here, “will” means the ability to do something, like move.

Lines 19-20

The ship is anchor’d safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;

• The ship finally arrives safely in the harbor and drops its anchor. Its trip is done.
• The speaker reminds us that the trip was difficult and dangerous, but the mission was a success.
• “Victor ship” here means the victorious ship, not a ship named Victor. 
• Why is it victorious? Well, it’s won its object, met its goal. Hurray!

Lines 21-24

                   Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
  But I, with mournful tread,
    Walk the deck my Captain lies,
      Fallen cold and dead.

• And now that the speaker is in the harbor, he calls out to the shores and the bells to party down. Since neither shores nor bells are actually alive, this appeal to inanimate objects represents more apostrophes by our speaker.
• Why would just the speaker just be interested in the shores, though? Even though, on a boat, the shore would be the closest part of land, here the speaker means for the whole country to celebrate.
• Using a part of the land to represent the whole is again (you guessed it) synecdoche.
• Really, though, the speaker uses the shores as a symbol to represent the crowds of people standing there. He wants them to keep cheering and celebrating the homecoming of the ship and the success of the mission.
• While the crowd celebrates, the sailor remains on the ship, pacing sadly next to his dead captain.

All My Sons - Arthur Miller [Summary]

Joe Keller, a successful businessman, lives comfortably with his wife, Kate, and son, Chris, in a suburban American neighborhood. They have only one sadness in their lives – the loss of their other son, Larry, who went missing in World War II. After three years, Kate still clings to the hope that her son is alive. Chris would like her to give up that hope because he wants to marry Ann, an old neighbor and Larry's former fiancée.

Ann arrives. Kate, sensing the reason for her visit, gets a little touchy. We learn that Ann's father is in prison for a crime he committed while working in Joe's factory. Faced with a batch of defective machine parts, he patched them and sent them out, causing the death of 21 pilots during the war. Turns out that Joe was also accused of this crime and convicted, but he was exonerated (set free) during the appeal. Steve went to prison; Joe returned home and made his business bigger and better.

Soon after Ann's arrival, her brother George follows, straight from visiting his father in prison. He knows what Chris has in mind and is totally against him marrying Ann. Joe and Kate do their best to charm George into submission, but finally it's Ann who sends him away. She wants to marry Chris no matter what.

The marriage of Chris and Ann is becoming a reality – and Kate can't handle it, because it means Larry is truly dead. And if Larry is dead, she tells Chris, it's because his own father killed him, since Larry was also a pilot. Chris finally confronts his father's guilt in shipping those defective parts.

But Chris won't do anything about it. He won't even ask his father to go to prison. Ann, who turned her back on her own father for the same reason, insists that Chris take a hard line. Joe Keller goes inside to get his things. A gunshot is heard. He's killed himself.

All My Sons Act 1 Summary

• The stage directions describe the Keller home as situated in an American suburb. It's roughly August 1947.
• The house is comfortable and well-kept, as is the yard. Downstage left stands an apple tree stump. The trunk and branches are toppled beside it.
• Joe Keller is in his yard reading the want ads. He's a self-made businessman of about sixty. Doctor Jim Bayliss, his neighbor, is about forty. He's reading the paper too.
• Joe's neighbor on the other side, Frank, enters. He's 32.
• The neighbors chat about the weather and the want ads.
• Frank notices the felled tree. It was struck by lightning in the night. He observes how strange it is that the tree planted in memory of Larry was struck down in his birth month. Larry is Joe's son. He would have been twenty-seven this August, which Frank remembers because he's working on Larry's horoscope.
• What Frank is trying to figure out – at the request of Kate, Joe's wife – is whether the day on which Larry was reported missing was his "favorable day," when, astrologically speaking, odds are he wouldn't die.
• This piques skeptical Jim's interest – he doesn't buy it.
• Talk turns to Annie, a young woman who used to live next door. She's visiting the Kellers and is upstairs asleep for now.
• Jim makes a quip about how the block could use a pretty face. Just then his fat wife enters, nagging him about a patient's phone call.
• Frank's wife Lydia comes in, also curious about Annie. Is she engaged? She was Larry's betrothed.
• Chris Keller enters. He's 32. He starts reading the book section.
• Joe and Chris start to talk about Larry's tree when eight-year-old neighbor Bert enters. He's Joe's "deputy" and tattles on some of the other kids on the street. He asks to see the jail Joe keeps in his basement, but Joe won't let him.
• Bert exits; talk turns back to the tree. Mom saw it last night, says Chris. She was outside when it broke, then she came in and cried.
• Kate Keller still believes Larry is coming back, even though it's been three years. Chris thinks they should puncture the illusion; Joe wants to keep it intact.
• Chris sits his dad down. Listen up, pop, he says – I'm going to propose to Annie. But Mom still thinks she's Larry's girl.
• Chris threatens to leave town – and the family business – if his father doesn't encourage his mother to support this marriage. Joe is shocked.
• Kate enters, a woman in her early fifties. She's happy the tree blew down, because it affirms for her that Larry is still alive. They were in a rush to memorialize him with that tree.
• Kate and Chris tiptoe around a discussion of Annie. Kate doesn't want to acknowledge that Chris might be courting her.
• Kate recalls a dream she had about Larry last night. When she heard the wind, she imagined it was Larry flying by in his fighter plane.
• Kate turns to Joe and wags her finger at him: they shouldn't have planted that tree. They gave up too soon.
• When Chris exits to get his mother an aspirin, she turns on Joe. Chris better not be planning to propose to Annie. Joe says he doesn't know anything more than she does – an outright lie.
• Kate wants Joe to believe with her that Larry will come back. He asks her to calm down.
• They're again interrupted by Bert, who brings up the jail. Kate reacts sharply, telling him there is no jail there.
• Ann enters from the house. She's beautiful and beautifully dressed. She's been living in New York.
• When Chris shows his admiration for Ann, Kate comments lightly that she has put on a little weight.
• Ann remarks on the little changes in the neighborhood: trees, a missing hammock. She's introduced to Jim, who now lives in her old house.
• When Ann mentions Larry, Kate is relieved. Eventually she asks Ann directly if she's waiting for Larry. Ann says no.
• Frank enters and dispels the tension. A little small talk, and then Frank mentions Ann's father. He's in prison.
• Ann is sensitive; she wants to know if the neighbors still talk about her father and his crime. Chris and Joe say no. Ann remembers the neighbors screaming "Murderers" at her father, Steve, and at Joe.
• In a long monologue, Joe recalls the day he was cleared of the crime. He and Steve had been accused of selling cracked cylinder heads to the Air Force, causing twenty-one planes to crash. Joe was exonerated; Ann's father was imprisoned. When Joe returned home, he walked down the street with defiance and pride. He suggests the same for Steve when he's released.
• Ann admits that neither she nor her brother keep in touch with their father anymore. They blame him for knowingly shipping out faulty parts, resulting in the death of so many American pilots. She wonders aloud whether this was responsible for Larry's death.
• That really sets Kate off. Ann should never say that again.
• Keller tells his version of the story. There was a mad rush for parts, and when the cylinders came out cracked, cowardly Steve just decided to send them out. He was afraid that Joe and the military would be displeased with the mistake, so he kept quiet about it.
• Chris breaks in. He just wants a change of subject. So they talk about steak and champagne instead, and Keller exits.
• The long-awaited proposal occurs. Chris asks; Ann says yes. Now they just have to figure out how to tell Kate.
• Chris has something to get off his chest. It's about the war. Leading a company, he lost all his men. Then he returned to the States and felt that nobody noticed; that the sacrifice of the men who died meant nothing substantial to the people at home. He has survivor's guilt. Chris feels as though he doesn't deserve life and doesn't deserve her.
• Ann sets him straight – he does deserve her. And he better kiss her right now.
• Joe interrupts them. There's a phone call from George, Ann's brother.
• Chris tells Joe the news of his engagement to Ann. But Joe is preoccupied with this phone call. He's afraid George will want to open up his father's case again, and that Ann is on his side.
• Ann emerges. George is coming there to settle something. He wouldn't say what.
• This rattles Joe and Kate. Kate tells Joe to be smart.