Comparative Essay - HUMN 2010

Tregany Fears
Mr. Adam Diehl
04/10/2023
Analog Poetry
Compared - “Before You Came” & “Lion” 

Love Languages - WOA, Gifts, PT, QT, AOS

Types of Love - Storge, Ludus, Philautia, Agape, Pragma, Phillia, Eros

As I was listening to “Before You Came” by Faiz Ahmad Faiz, it reminded me of the
time in class when we took out to watch “Lion.” Lion was a film about a young Indian boy
named Saroo, who lived in India until one day when he and his brother were getting on the train
and when he got on the train it was only him and his brother were nowhere to be found. Saroo
found himself cruising into the dry lands of Australia. “Before You Came” relates to this because
Faiz says in the poem “The Grey of your absence, the color of poison and thorns,” which made
me think of “Lion,” when he never gets to see his brother again because as Saroo got onto the
train Guddu was hit and killed by an oncoming train. after Saroo finds his actual relatives via
Google Earth. When it came to the line “The sky is wet with tears, the road vein about to break,”
It reminded me of the scene in “Lion,” when Saroo was in the tunnel and was with the other kids
before all of them were getting kidnapped by the other adults. The Sky could be him, who is a
young child missing his family and is filled with tears because he’s in another country unlike
them. The road could be his whole journey of trying to find his family again. In Lion, Saroo is
moving in with two young individuals Sue & John Brierley who unexpectedly become his
parents until he leaves to find his real family.  When Faiz mentions “ Don’t leave now that you're
here — Stay. So the world may become like itself again,” helps me interpret “Lion” a little bit
more only because it sneaks up on you as it proceeds to pluck your heartstrings with its little cat
feet. Then, before you know it, tear ducts will be brimming and your entire being will be awash
with incredible joy but also a splash of bittersweet sorrow. At least that is what happened to
those around me during this incredible true tale. Then, the poem is a little similar only because
this person once had a dull and ordinary perspective on life, but has a changed heart after he
meets a person he loves. Love is represented through imagery and tone shifts, and is emphasized
through the use of caesura. After each stanza, the tone drastically shifts from nostalgia and
dullness to passion and color, from darkness, pain, and destruction to optimism. The imagery
was used to contribute to the symbolism, when Faiz compares his internal emotions to the
seemingly uninteresting things in the globe. Even though Saroo isn’t this person in the poem, he
could relate only because he went through so many obstacles before he got to where he is right
now. What if Faiz's poem was about Saroo? The sky would be about his sadness, the road to his
pain, and the wine reflecting his inability to see eye to eye when in association with Sue & John.
Overall, this portrays how love can have the special, magical ability to change a person's world.
Love changed Saroo because he was given more of an Agape way of love because of him feeling
as if he had two families and two different homes in two different countries (India & Australia).
He learned how to love the people in both areas. If you can do that; then you can have the ability
to love everyone. In the poem, the speaker begins by addressing how previously, things were the
same as always. With the arrival of the person, Faiz said that everything had changed for him
because of this person. Then, this person is described as almost magnificent. In the last stanza,
Faiz asks the person to stay because nothing will be the same without them. Lion is very similar
because nothing was the same whenever Saroo left his brother and his brother passed away
trying to catch a train. Once Saroo left India he never felt the same, (just like Faiz and the
mystery man or woman in his life). The sky, after all, is much more like a spread-out cloak or
other long flowing garment, than it is like a shirt, so that the altered metaphor becomes much less
effective. And since the lover’s tears in the ghazal world tend most often to be tears of blood, the
vision of a possibly blood-drenched garment would rise involuntarily to the traditionally-trained
reader’s eye. This association of ideas is another reason Faiz. is unlikely to have wanted us to
think of the sky primarily as wet with (bloody) tears. This reminds me overall about Saroo’s
journey because of unexpectedly moving from India to Australia without knowing that he went
to a completely different country down south. Saroo shares with his adored older brother, Guddu.
Which also if Faiz mentioned who it was in the story and Saroo was in the story, then the person
Saroo doesn’t want to leave him would’ve been Guddu since they were very inseparable from
the jump in the film “Lion”.