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Subject Name : English Honours / Major Programme

Title of Lesson : Exile (From Rough Passage)

Author : R. Parthasarathy

No. of Parts (I/II) and Duration : I – 30 Minutes

Paper/Level (I/II) : Cluster / Paper VII

(C) Indian Writing in English, 1750-1900

Under Graduates : B.A.

SUBJECT EXPERT:

Name : Dr. Vitthal Gore

Qualification : M.A, M.Phil, Ph.D.

Designation : Assistant Professor of English,

Matrusri Engineering College, Saidabad,

Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India.

shree2vitthal@gmail.com

M. No. 9030408330

OBJECTIVES:
 To summarise and interpret the poem Exile from Rough Passage.
 To study thematic concerns and literary approaches to the poem.
 To highlight the sense of isolation and alienation in the modern world.
 To learn cultural conflict in Indian writing in English with special reference to R.
Parthasarathy.
SCRIPT:

Exile

R. Parthasarathy
Introduction

Hello viewers in this session you will study R. Parthasarathy’s poem Exile, which is one of the
three sections of a long poem Rough Passage written during a period of 20 years. The poem
reveals Parthasarathy’s cultural dilemma and the issue of language and identity. The first section
of Exile explains the colonial past of the nation using the poet’s personal past. The poet also
expresses the cultural dilemma which opposes the European culture and examines the effects of
British rule on an Indian especially losing his identity altogether with his culture. The poet
expresses his predicament in England where he feels isolated and alienated. The poet takes an
introspective journey right into his personal and cultural conflict between the British and Indian
values.

Module 1: Introduction to R. Parthasarathy

Rajagopal Parthasarathy was born in 1934 at Tirupparaiturai near Tiruchchirappalli in Tamil

Nadu. He was educated at Don Bosco High School and Siddharth College, Mumbai and at Leeds
University, United Kingdom where he was a British Council Scholar in 1963-64. He was a
Lecturer in English Literature in Mumbai for ten years before joining Oxford University Press in
1971 as Regional Editor in Chennai; then he moved to New Delhi in 1978. Presently he is
working as an Associate Professor of English at Asian Studies at Skidmore College in Saratoga
Springs, New York, USA.

His works include Poetry from Leeds in 1968; Rough Passage brought out by Oxford University
Press in 1977. He edited Ten Twentieth-Century Indian Poets published by Oxford University
Press in 1976 which went into sixteen impressions by 2002. His translation into modern English
verse of the 5th century Tamil epic, The Tale of the Anklet: An Epic of South India was brought
out by Columbia University Press in 1993. It has received significant awards including the
Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize in 1995 and The Association for Asian Studies, - A. K.
Ramanujan Book Prize for Translation in 1996.
R. Parthasarathy is one of the poets who cultivate an extreme austerity in style; he is probably the
most successful poet in Modern Indian English Poetry. The First Step-Poems 1956-66 is his
poetic collection. His best poems reveal an uncommon talent and a sensibility that deliberately
puts shackles on itself. His most ambitious effort is towards an understanding of Indian culture.
He is a conscientious artist with a meticulous aesthetic taste. His poetry is the articulation of his
predicament of an exile which has alienated him from his culture. His poetry is an intense search
for identity, a search for roots in his nature, culture, environment and language. The search is
realized by an objective probing of personal as well as momentous past.

Module 2: Introduction to Rough Passage

R. Parthasarathy’s Rough Passage is a long poem which has a three-tier structure. It has three
sections comprising three different poems – Exile, Trial, and Home Coming. The poet expresses
his cultural conflict which is the core of his poetry. As a young student, he went to England and
was infatuated with British life and English language. But his life in England put an end to his
Anglo-mania and he was caught in a cultural dilemma which is strongly reflected in this poem.

In the first section titled, Exile the poet describes his life and experiences in England where he
felt isolated and alienated from his culture and civilization. It also reveals the poet’s infatuation
with English language and British culture. As long as the poet was in the British atmosphere, he
found it totally degenerated and felt alienated from his Tamil roots in India. The poet’s present
concern with English language and his native language (Tamil) initiated a cultural dilemma in
his mind. He gives some clues related to his own cultural discrimination. In Exile, Parthasarathy
gains new insight into his colonial identity and learns the anguish of being born too late to affect
the lives of the colonizers and the colonized. Here we find the recurrent themes like the theme of
language and the theme colonial alienation. The colonial and linguistic dilemma has turned him
to the study of Sanskrit and his mother tongue, Tamil.

In the second section, Trial, Parthasarathy celebrates love and human relationship. In England he
had no relationship and emotional bond with anybody. But when he came back to his
motherland, he has attained everything that he lost and formed new bonds of love with his own
people. Love is a reality in India, whereas an illusion in England. His momentary look at the
family-album fills him with nostalgic memories. Love and concern of the members of his family
gives him a sense of belonging and makes him realize that there is no other place in the world
like home.

In the third section, Home Coming, he gives expression to his joy of discovery when he discovers
his native roots and tries to harmonize the English language with Tamil culture. He is in an
ecstatic mood, though his ecstasy is tinged with regret; he expresses his joy when he comes back
to his cultural heritage.

Module 3: ‘EXILE’ from ROUGH PASSAGE

As a man approaches thirty he may
Take stock of himself.
Not that anything important happens. 3

At thirty the mud will have settled:

You see yourself in a mirror.
Perhaps, refuse the image as yours. 6

Makes no difference, unless

You overtake yourself. Pause for breath.
Time gave you distance: you see little else, 9

You stir, and the mirror dissolves.

Experience doesn't always make for knowledge:
You make the same mistakes. 12

Do the same things over again.

The woman you may have loved
You never married. These many years 15

You warmed yourself at her hands.

The luminous pebbles of her body
Stayed your feet, else you had overflowed 18

The banks, never reached shore.

The sides of the river swell
With the least pressure of her toes. 21

All night your hand has rested

On her left breast.
In the morning when she is gone 24

You will be alone like the stone benches

In the park, and would have forgotten
Her whispers in the noises of the city. 27
Module 4: Structure and Narrator of the Poem
R. Parthasarathy’s Rough Passage is a long poem which has a tripartite structure with triads as
expressive prosodic units. It is a composition of thirty eight sequences which are presented
within three sections - ‘Exile’, ‘Trial’ and ‘Home Coming’. The dominant voice in every section
includes the dialogue, between the poet’s consciousness/mind and the inner self. R.
Parthasarathy himself writes about the structure of the poem:

“Rough Passage is a book where all the poems form part of a single poem as it were… In
it twenty years’ writing has finally settled… The prosodic form is a triad – a stanza of
three long and short lines that approximate to the rhythm of speech, of prose. The stanza
itself actively enters into the rhythmic structure: it connects, holds over or looks ahead,
and thus establishes an overall unity. Each section as a result, flows into the next, and
helps the poem to move forward to its destined end”.

Thus it is easy for the readers to believe that the structure of the poem is consciously and
carefully thought out design. The poet himself is the narrator of the poem. He narrates his
experience of isolation in England and his introspective exile, trials and home coming. The poet
expresses his real life experiences in the poem. His use of language is spare and unmotivated; the
poem develops in a series of verse sentences which make a little use of cadence, rhyme, or
melody. The strength of his poetry lies almost entirely in its visual juxtapositions and the
startling image. His lines do not sing; he cultivates the deliberate prosaic style, an undertone of
rhythm itself. So his poems become memorable not only for individual images themselves but
also occasionally, the prose ignites no metaphor and it is almost purely descriptive.

Module 5: Summary of the poem

‘Exile’ constitutes as one of the three sections in Rough Passage. The deliberately designed
structure of the poem helps the poet to express the three stages of his intellectual and emotional
development. ‘Exile’ places the culture of Europe against that of India and deals with the loss of
identity of the poet with his own culture, language and civilization. The other two, which have
indicative titles, are ‘Trial’ and ‘Home Coming’.

The poem begins with a search for roots and one’s identity. The narrator tells us about a grown
up man who approaches thirty and has so many things to his credit. The life that he lived in
England has taught him a lesson and the experiences that he has had during his stay there have
compelled him to differentiate between what he has left behind and what he possesses in the
present. Life in England has been a struggle and conflict between British values versus
Indian/Tamil values. He has been pursuing something which is not his own and cannot be at all.

The influence of time on an individual is natural and no one can spurn it. The narrator who is
quite mature now realizes the difference between the past and present. His association with India
and its heritage makes him feel isolated in England. The consciousness of the past and his Indian
origin disturbs him at every stage and makes him restless and anxious. Altogether, he recollects
from the past and tries a solution for a better present and future. It is he who can change his life
and stop chasing something unproductive. The poet translates the colonial past of his motherland
using his personal nostalgic feelings. He opposes the culture of Europe with Asia, and examines
the effects of British rule with reference to an Indian who is especially losing his identity along
with his own culture.

In the next expression, the narrator tells us about his association with English language and
British culture. Since childhood, he learned English and adopted almost everything as if it is the
best in the world; but now he is disappointed and disillusioned. He realizes the difference
between something of his own and that of others. In this context the poet writes:
 The woman you may have loved
You never married. These many years.

By this expression, we realize that Parthasarathy conveys Tamil consciousness instead of Indian
nationalism. Of course, it enlightens the issue of language consciousness and identity but we feel
Tamil regionalism in his nationalistic feeling.

In the next expression, the narrator expresses his predicament and sense of isolation in England
where he seems to be like a fish out of water. In the course of time, the boldness in Tamil
language has vanished and all started following English as a means of communication. This
shows the narrators’ personal crisis since he realized that the foreign experience has been
harmful to his ‘self’ having its perpetual effects. The poet writes:

The banks, never reached shore.

The sides of the river swell
With the least pressure of her toes.

In the last two triads, the poet seems to be expressing an evening scene between a man and
woman but his expressions points out something different. He writes:

All night your hand has rested

On her left breast.
In the morning when she is gone.

Here the lady stands for English language which was served by him for long; but she could never
be his own. On the contrary, the language that he really loves may be the native language
(Tamil) and he returns to the native language after his infatuation with English. The protagonist
accepts Indian and British cultures but his experience with the two opposite cultures compelled
him to compare and contrast both in order to make the best choice.

In the last triad, the poet expresses his isolation and alienation. He writes,

You will be alone like the stone benches

In the park, and would have forgotten
Her whispers in the noises of the city.

The exile or isolation in this expression is really a self-enforced one. Its value is based on the
way it leads the protagonist to understand through his experiences of exile and loss of identity in
the foreign land. Though he has wasted his youth, he resolves to hold this newly discovered
knowledge in the noises of the city. His passion for the mother-tongue helps him to start once
again at the age of thirty. With this new love for the native language and consciousness of the
past, the poet moves from the first stage of ‘Exile’ to the second stage of ‘Trial’.

The second section, ‘Trial’, the poet celebrates love that passes through turmoil but nevertheless
gives him a sense of belonging. The third section ‘Home Coming’ is an attempt to reconcile his
urban self with his Tamil roots. Parthasarathy begins with an infatuation for English and British
life; and ends with his homecoming. However, his visit to England was a complete
disillusionment. The tension in this poem lies in this cultural dilemma caused by his
expectations, disappointments and awareness of the loss of identity with his own language,
culture and civilization. He introduces surprising images and metaphors and his imagination
endows them with symbolic and universal significance.

Module 6: Themes in the poem

Theme of Identity
The theme of identity is a recurrent and dominating one in the first section of the long poem
Rough Passage. The narrator is introspective of his belonging to language, culture, country, etc.
He went to England to study and adopted English language and British culture so as to cope up
with the atmosphere there. When he reached the age of thirty he realized that he was missing
something which was his origin and permanent belonging. His realization of his link with his
mother tongue and culture make him restless and anxious. He becomes nostalgic and keeps
thinking about his Tamil culture, language, the members of his family, his own people, etc.
Throughout the poem, the poet-narrator makes an attempt to find his real identity.

Theme of Isolation and Alienation

Being in a foreign land itself is sufficient to make an individual feel isolated and alienated from
his family, society, language, culture, country and so on. In this poem, the poet-narrator becomes
conscious of the purpose of learning English and his visit to England. His introspective mind
makes him aware of the loss of identity and his isolation from his origins. He adopted English
and British life which is not his own and cannot satisfy at all. His association with the English
language and England has brought him to a pathetic situation where he is totally shattered and
alone with disillusionment and disappointment. Being there in England for some time could not
make him an Englishman and he could not remain a complete Indian. This cultural
consciousness makes him learn Tamil and come back to India in search of his origin.

Theme of Language
The theme of language is the major theme of the poem. The narrator gives us an account of his
experience and life in England. We are also informed about the incidents in the past and purpose
of going to England as a student. His infatuation with English as a language is obvious since he
has to live there in a British environment. He learns the language for his livelihood and bright
career. But in due course, he lost touch with his mother tongue i.e. Tamil. His awareness of this
fact makes this poem filled with the theme of language. He becomes aware of his existence as an
Indian and a Tamil in particular. He is isolated from his language, family, society, culture, etc.
and wants to regain the lost glory.

Theme of Cultural Dilemma

Cultural dilemma is the essence of this poem. Parthasarathy consistently declared that his poem
has cultural dilemma as the fundamental concept. His experience of the British predicament
versus Indian values has always dominated him during his stay in England. The comparison
between both the cultures initiated the dilemma which involved him for a longer period of time
till he chooses between the two.

Theme of Regionalism
Parthasarathy’s treatment of the theme of regionalism is a peculiar case study. The elements of
regionalism cannot be found directly. The poet seems to speak about Indian culture only
obliquely—he only refers to Tamil language, culture and his personal sense of belonging. This
makes the poem acquire elements of regionalism.

Conclusion

I hope you have enjoyed R. Parthasarathy’s poem, Exile. His poetry expresses a sense of
nostalgia; his comments on his country are half-ironic and he frequently indulges in self-satire.
There is a depression combined with introspection which is visible in his poems. Parthasarathy is
a complete craftsman who possesseses a highly perceptive and rational sense of language.

Case Study
1. Discuss R. Parthasarathy as a modern Indian Poet writing in English.

Rajagopal Parthasarathy was born in 1934 at Tirupparaiturai near Tiruchchirappalli in Tamil

Nadu. He was educated at Don Bosco High School and Siddharth College, Mumbai and at Leeds
University, United Kingdom where he was a British Council Scholar in 1963-64. He was a
Lecturer in English Literature in Mumbai for ten years before joining Oxford University Press in
1971 as Regional Editor in Chennai; then he moved to New Delhi in 1978. Presently he is
working as an Associate Professor of English at Asian Studies at Skidmore College in Saratoga
Springs, New York, USA.

His works include Poetry from Leeds in 1968; Rough Passage brought out by Oxford University
Press in 1977. He edited Ten Twentieth-Century Indian Poets published by Oxford University
Press in 1976 which went into sixteen impressions only in 2002. His translation into modern
English verse of the 5th century Tamil epic, The Tale of the Anklet: An Epic of South India
brought out by Columbia University Press in 1993. It has received significant awards including
the Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize in 1995 and The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. - A.
K. Ramanujan Book Prize for Translation in 1996.

R. Parthasarathy is one of the poets who cultivate an extreme austerity in style; he is probably the
most successful poet in Modern English Poetry. The First Step-Poems 1956-66 is his poetic
collection. His best poems reveal an uncommon talent and a sensibility that deliberately puts
shackles on itself. His most ambitious effort is towards an understanding of Indian culture. He is
a conscientious artist with a meticulous aesthetic taste. His poetry is the articulation of his
predicament of an exile which has alienated him from his culture. His poetry is an intense search
for identity, a search for roots in his nature, culture, environment and language. The search is
realized by an objective probing of personal as well as momentous past.
2. Write a brief introduction to R. Parthasarathy’s Rough Passage

R. Parthasarathy’s Rough Passage is a long poem which has a three-tier structure. It has three
sections comprising three different poems – Exile, Trial, and Home Coming. The poet expresses
his cultural conflict which is the core of his poetry. As a young student, he went to England and
was infatuated with British life and English language. But his life in England put an end to his
Anglo-mania and he was caught in a cultural dilemma which strongly reflects in this poem.

In the first section titled, Exile the poet describes his life and experiences in England where he
felt isolated and alienated from his culture and civilization. It also reveals the poet’s infatuation
with English language and British culture. As long as the poet was in the British atmosphere, he
found it totally degenerated and felt alienated from his Tamil roots in India. The poet’s present
concern with English language and his native language (Tamil) initiated a cultural dilemma in
his mind. He gives some clues related to his own cultural discrimination. In Exile, Parthasarathy
gains new insight into his colonial identity and learns the anguish of being borned too late to
affect the lives of the colonizers and the colonized. Here we find the recurrent theme like the
theme of language and the theme colonial alienation. The colonial and linguistic dilemma has
turned him to the study of Sanskrit and his mother tongue, Tamil.

In the second section, Trial, Parthasarathy celebrates love and human relationship. In England he
had no relationship and emotional bond with anybody. But when he came back to his
motherland, he has attained everything that he lost and formed new bonds of love with his own
people. Love is a reality in India, whereas an illusion in England. His momentary look at the
family-album fills him with nostalgic memories. Love and concern of the members of his family
gives him a sense of belonging and makes him realize that there is no other place in the world
like home.

In the third section, Home Coming, he gives expression to his joy of discovery when he discovers
his native roots and tries to harmonize the English language with Tamil culture. He is in an
ecstatic mood, though his ecstasy is tinged with regret; he expresses his joy when he comes back
to his cultural heritage.
 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q. 1. Explain the structure of the poem ‘Exile’ from Parthasarathy’s Rough Passage.

R. Parthasarathy’s Rough Passage is a long poem which has a tripartite structure with triads as
expressive prosodic units. It is a composition of thirty eight sequences which are presented
within three sections - ‘Exile’, ‘Trial’ and ‘Home Coming’. The dominant voice in every section
includes the dialogue, between the poet’s consciousness mind and the inner self. R. Parthasarathy
himself writes about the structure of the poem:

“Rough Passage is a book where all the poems form part of a single poem as it were… In
it twenty years’ writing has finally settled… The prosodic form is a triad – a stanza of
three long and short lines that approximate to the rhythm of speech, of prose. The stanza
itself actively enters into the rhythmic structure: it connects, holds over or looks ahead,
and thus establishes an over all unity. Each section as a result, flows into the next, and
helps the poem to move forward to its destined end”.

Thus it is comprehensible for the readers that the structure of the poem is consciously and
carefully thought out design. The poet himself is the narrator of the poem. He narrates his
experience of isolation in England and his introspective exile, trials and home coming. The poet
expresses his real life experiences in the poem. His use of language is spare and unmotivated; the
poem develops in a series of verse sentences which make a little use of cadence, rhyme, or
melody. The strength of his poetry lies almost entirely in its visual juxtapositions and the
startling image. His lines do not sing; he cultivates the deliberate prosaic style, an undertone of
rhythm itself. So his poems become memorable for individual images themselves but
occasionally, the prose ignites no metaphor and it is almost purely descriptive.

Q. 2. Write a summary of the poem ‘Exile’ from Parthasarathy’s Rough Passage

‘Exile’ constitutes as one of the three sections in Rough Passage. The deliberately designed
structure of the poem helps the poet to express the three stages of his intellectual and emotional
development. ‘Exile’ places the culture of Europe against that of India and deals with the loss of
identity of the poet with his own culture, language and civilization. Other two, which have
indicative titles, are ‘Trial’ and ‘Home Coming’.
The poem begins with a search for roots and one’s identity. The narrator tells us about a grown
up man who approaches thirty and has so many things to his credit. The life that he lived in
England has taught him a lesson and the experiences that he has during his stay there have
compelled him to differentiate between what he has left behind and what he possesses in the
present. Life in England has been a struggle and conflict between British values versus
Indian/Tamil values. He has been pursuing something which is not his own and can not be at all.

The influence of time on an individual is natural and no one can spurn it. The narrator who is
quite matured now realizes the difference between the past and present. His association with
India and its heritage makes him feel isolated in England. The consciousness of the past and his
Indian origin disturb him at every stage and make him restless and anxious. Altogether, he
recollects from the past and tries a solution for better present and future. It is he who can change
his life and stop chasing something unproductive. The poet translates the colonial past of his
motherland using his personal nostalgic feelings. He opposes the culture of Europe with Asia,
and examines the effects of British rule with an Indian who is especially losing his identity along
with his own culture.

In the next expression, the narrator tells us about his association with English language and
British culture. Since childhood, he learned English and adopted almost everything as if it is the
best in the world; but now he is disappointed and disillusioned. He realizes the difference
between something of his own and that of others. In this context the poet writes:

The woman you may have loved

You never married. These many years.

By this expression, we realize that Parthasarathy conveys Tamil consciousness instead of Indian
nationalism. Off course, it enlightens the issue of language consciousness and identity but we
feel Tamil regionalism in his nationalistic feeling.

In the next expression, the narrator expresses his predicament and sense of isolation in England
where he seems to be like a fish out of water. In the course of time, the boldness in Tamil
language has vanished and all started following English as a means of communication. This
shows narrators’ personal crisis since he realized that the foreign experience has been harmful to
his ‘self’ having its perpetual effects. The poet writes:
 The banks, never reached shore.
The sides of the river swell
With the least pressure of her toes.

In the last two triads, the poet seems to be expressing an evening scene between a man and
woman but his expressions points out something different. He writes:

All night your hand has rested

On her left breast.
In the morning when she is gone.

Here the lady stands for English language which he served by him for long; but she could never
be of his own. On the contrary, the language that he really loves may be the native language
(Tamil) and he returns to native language after his infatuation with English. The protagonist
accepts Indian and British cultures but his experience with the two opposite cultures compelled
him to compare and contrast for the best choice.

In the last triad, the poet expresses his isolation and alienation. He writes,

You will be alone like the stone benches

In the park, and would have forgotten
Her whispers in the noises of the city.

The exile or isolation in this expression is really a self-enforced one. Its value is based on the
way it leads the protagonist to understand through his experiences of exile and loss of identity in
the foreign land. Though he has wasted his youth, he resolves to hold this newly discovered
knowledge in the noises of the city. His passion for mother tongue helps him to start once again
at the age of thirty. With this new love for native language and consciousness of the past, the
poet moves from the first stage of ‘Exile’ to the second stage of ‘Trial’.

The second section, ‘Trial’, the poet celebrates love that passes through turmoil but nevertheless
gives him a sense of belonging. The third section ‘Home Coming’ is an attempt to reconcile his
urban self with his Tamil roots. Parthasarathy begins with an infatuation for English and British
life; and ends with his home coming. However, his visit to England was complete
disillusionment. The tension in this poem lies in this cultural dilemma caused by his
expectations, disappointments and awareness of the loss of identity with his own language,
culture and civilization. He introduces surprising images and metaphors and his imagination
endows them with symbolic and universal significance.

Q. 3. Discuss the Theme of Identity in Parthasarathy’s ‘Exile’ from Rough Passage.

The theme of identity is a recurrent and dominating one in the first section of the long poem
Rough Passage. The narrator is introspective of his belonging to language, culture, country, etc.
He went to England for study purpose and adopted English language and British culture so as to
cope up with the atmosphere there. When he becomes thirty years old, he realizes that he is
missing something which is his origin and permanent belonging. His realization of his mother
tongue and culture makes him restless and anxious. He becomes nostalgic and keeps thinking
about his Tamil culture, language, members of his family, his own people, etc. Through out the
poem, the poet-narrator makes an attempt to find his real identity.

Q. 4. Examine the Theme of Isolation and Alienation in Parthasarathy’s ‘Exile’ from Rough
Passage.
Being in a foreign land itself is sufficient to make out that an individual feels isolated and
alienated from his family, society, language, culture, country and so on. In this poem, the poet-
narrator becomes conscious of the purpose of learning English and his visit to England. His
introspective mind makes him aware of the loss of identity and his isolation from his origin. He
adopted English and British life which is not his own and can not be at all. His association with
English language and England has brought him to a pathetic situation where he is totally
shattered and alone with disillusion and disappointment. Being there in England for some time
could not make him an Englishman and he could remain as a complete Indian. This cultural
consciousness makes him learn Tamil and come back to India in search of his origin.

Q. 5. Explain the Theme of Language with reference to Parthasarathy’s ‘Exile’ from Rough
Passage.
The theme of language is the major theme of the poem. The narrator gives us an account of his
experience and life in England. We are also informed about the incidents in the past and purpose
of going to England as a student. His infatuation with English as a language is obvious since he
has to live there in British environment. He learns the language for his livelihood and career
making. But in the due course, he lost touch with his mother tongue i.e. Tamil. His awareness of
this fact makes this poem filled with the theme of language. He becomes aware of his existence
as an Indian and a Tamil in particular. He is isolated from his language, family, society, culture,
etc. and wants to regain the lost glory.

Q. 6. Discuss the Theme of Cultural Dilemma in Parthasarathy’s ‘Exile’ from Rough Passage.
Cultural dilemma is the essence of this poem. Parthasarathy consistently supported that his poem
has cultural dilemma as the fundamental concept. His experience of British predicament versus
Indian values has always dominated him during his stay in England. The comparison between
both the cultures initiated the dilemma which involved him for a longer period of time till he
chooses between the two.

Q. 7. Discuss the Theme of Regionalism in Parthasarathy’s ‘Exile’ from Rough Passage.

Parthasarathy’s treatment to the theme of regionalism is a peculiar case study. The elements of
regionalism can not be found directly. The poet seems to speak about Indian culture but
obliquely he only refers to Tamil language, culture and his personal belonging. This makes the
poem having elements regionalism.

Self Study Assignments

1. Identify the co-ordinating aspects in the three sections of the long poem Rough Passage.
2. How do you rate R. Parthasarathy as a Modern Indian Poet writing in English? Refer to
his literary contributions and evaluate.

Quiz

Q. 1. How long does the poet work for writing the long poem, Rough Passage?
a. 10 years
b. 15 years
c. 20 years
d. 25 years

Q. 2. When did R. Parthasarathy publish his long poem, Rough Passage?

a. 1968
b. 1977
c. 1988
d. 1995
Q. 3. Which prestigious award does Parthasarathy receive for his translation work in 1995?
a. Sahitya Akademi Translation Prize
b. A. K. Ramanujan Book Prize for Translation
c. Booker Prize
d. Nobel Prize for Literature

Q. 4. Who is the narrator of the poem?

a. The poet himself
b. An Indian living abroad
c. A British person
d. An Anglo-Indian

Q. 5. What is the theme of first section of Rough Passage, ‘Exile’?

a. East and west encounter
b. War and love
c. Love and peace
d. Cultural conflict

Q. 6. How many sections are there in the long poem Rough Passage ?
a. Only one
b. Two
c. Three
d. Four

Q. 7. Sequence the three sections in Rough Passage?

a. Exile, Trial, and Home Coming
b. Trial, Exile, and Home Coming
c. Exile, Home Coming, and Trial
d. Trial, Home Coming, and Exile

Q. 8. What is the symbolic meaning of the lady described in the poem?

a. Girl friend of the narrator
b. Wife of the narrator
c. Native language of the narrator
 d. Mother of the narrator

Q. 9. How old the man is as described in the poem?

a. 30 years old
b. 35 years old
c. 40 years old
d. None of the above

Q. 10. What is the native language of the narrator?

a. Hindi
b. English
c. Tamil
d. Kannada.

Glossary

Approach: move towards

Refuse: to deny, to reject
Image: reflection
Overtake: go beyond, leave behind
Stir: mix, blend
Dissolve: liquefy, soften
Pause: break, gap
Luminous: glowing, shining
Pebbles: shingle, stones
Shore: coast, beach
Whisper: murmur, speak softly

Tutorials (Web Based Videos)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Aa67UdegG0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdnyqmMhsdo
 References

Chindhade, Shirish (2001). Five Indian English Poets: Nissim Ezekiel, A.K. Ramanujan, Arun
Kolatkar ... New Delhi: Atlantic Punishers and Distributors.
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=qx5x_0VQuZoC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false
R. Parthasarathy (1977). Preface to Rough Passage. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Danger, Joyanta (September 2011) “Love as a Synaesthetic Experience in R. Parthasarathy’s
Rough Passage.” The Criterion: An International Journal in English. Vol. II. Issue. III.
Ghosh and Bharati ( Feb. 2013) “R. Parthasarathy’s Poetry and Cultural Dilemma: An
Overview”. Research Spectrum Vol. 4, Issue 1.

Important Links
http://rajnishmishravns.wordpress.com/2011/12/06/the-postcolonial-global-village-and-r-
parthasarathys-poems/
http://voices.yahoo.com/rajagopal-parthasarthys-homecoming-5083757.html
http://blogs.thehindu.com/delhi/?p=27720
http://www.cse.iitk.ac.in/users/amit/books/parthasarathy-1976-ten-20th-century.html
http://weghr.com/r-parthasarthys-rough-passage-a-record-of-poets-growth/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._Parthasarathy
http://indoenglishpoetry.blogspot.in/2010/04/r-parthasarathy-his-poetic-achievements.html
http://jerryjournal.com/r-parthasarthys-rough-passage-an-eye-on-poets-development-of-mind/
http://forum.ignouonline.ac.in/forum/index.php?act=attach&type=blogentry&id=381
http://www.clicktoconvert.com