Indian Writing in English (Poetry) - 21536189 - 2024 - 04 - 13 - 11 - 41

English Litt. for B.A., M.A.
, NET/SET ,
English For Competitive Exams: Grade I,II,III, LDC, SSC, RAS, RJS, Asst. Prof.
By: Dr. S.K.Sharma, Asst. Prof. of English Helpline No: 8000166081
Poetry
1. C V Ramaswamy
2. Henry Derozio
3. Kashiprasad Ghose
4. M M Dutt
5. Tori Dutt
6. Vesuvala
7. R C Dutt
8. Manmohan Ghose
9. Aurobindo Ghose
10. Tagore
11. Sarojini Naidu
12. Nissim Ezekiel
13. Dom Moraes
14. A K Ramanujan
15. Parthasarathy
16. Gieve Patel
17. A K Mehrotra
18. Pritish Nandy
19. K N Daruwalla
20. Shiv K Kumar
21. Jayanta Mahapatra
22. Arun Kolatkar
23. Kamla Das
Dr. S.K. Sharma, Asst. Prof. of English

(6th Rank in all over Rajasthan )
M.A. 3 SET, 4 NET, M.Phil. Ph.D. (English Literature) Gold Medalist
BBC Excellence awardee
24 -year Teaching Experience of Offline Teaching
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English Litt. for B.A., M.A., NET/SET ,
Indo-Anglian Literature
 Indian writing in English

 The term ‘Indo-Anglian’ is used to denote original literary creation in the
English language by Indian. Eg Tagore , Aurbindo Ghosh
Anglo-Indian Literature-
 Englishman writing about India

 The term ‘Anglo-Indian Literature’ is used to denote the writing of
Englishmen in English about Indian and Indian life. Eg Rudyard Kipling,
E M Forster
 The Anglo Indian literature is said to be born in 1783, the year of arrival
in India of Sir William Jones, the great Orientalist, who became the first
Anglo-Indian poet.
Indo-English Literature
There is another term ‘Indo-English Literature’ which is used to denote

translations into English from literature in Indian language.
This ‘Indo-English Literature’ has been distinguished into ‘classical’ Indo-
English Literature and ‘modern’ Indo-English literature by scholars like Prof.
Gokak on the basis whether the translation is of an ancient or of a modern work.
Growth of Indo-Anglian Writing: Its Four Phases
(1) The First Phase or The Phase of Imitation-(1830-1880)
Kashiprasad Ghose, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, SK Ghosh, SB

Bannerjee etc were the pioneers in the field of Indian writing in English, and
their works are largely imitative may call this early phase (from 1830-1880)
The phase of imitation, though even these early writers show considerable
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mastery over English language and versification. They showed the seed which
was to grow flourish and bear fruit in the years to come.
(2) The Second Stage or Indianisation-(1880-1899)
‘The second stage’ is that of ‘Indianisation’, and it may be said to

begin with the works of Toru Dutt in the last quarter of the 19 th century.
(3) The Third Phase- (1900- 1947) — National consciousness
This phase starts with the opening of the new century. It is the phase
of increasing Indianisation, when the Indian writing in English acquire a
‘National Consciousness’ and write to interpret the mind and heart of India to
West.
Prominent poets of this phase are Sarojini Naidu, Tagore, Aurobindo
Ghosh etc.
The Fourth Phase or The Post-Independence Era-
Experimentation and individual talent mark the works of writers in

Post-Independence India. Indian writers have acquired confidence and strikes
out along new lines on their own.
 Late 17th century saw the coming of printing press in India but the
publication were largely confined to either printing Bible or government
decrees. Then came newspapers. It was in 1779 that the first English
Newspaper named Hickey’s Bengal Gazette was published in India. The
breakthrough in Indian English literature came in 1794 when a person by
the name of Sake Dean Mahomet published a book in London titled
Travels of Dean Mahomet: A Native of Patna in Bengal. Indian English

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writing is indebted to Michael H. Fisher, a historian, for making this text

easily available in his scholarly monograph, The First Indian Author in
English (1996) which published the whole of this travelogue written in
epistolary form.
 Macaulay’s Minute Upon Indian Education introduced in 1833

provided for the introduction of English as a medium of instruction with
the claim that “the English tongue would be the most useful for our
native subjects.” While presenting his famous minute, Macaulay admitted
quite candidly that he had not read any of the Sanskrit and Arabic books
and yet did not desist from making such a pronouncement: “…A single
shelf of a good European library is worth the whole native literature of
India and Arabia. …All the historical information which has been
collected in the Sanskrit language is less than what may be found in the
paltry abridgements used at preparatory schools of England…”
 The purpose of teaching English to Indian as Macaulay says to produce

—"a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in
opinions, in morals and in intellect".

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 Cavelly Venkata Ramaswami’s English translation of

‘Viswagunadarsan’ (1825) is the earliest book of verse in English by an
Indian. ( Sanskrit into English)
Henry Louis Vivian Derozio ( 1809-31)
 Father – Indo-Portugues, Mother — An Englishman

 First Indian English poet
 Influenced by Romantic poetry, especially Byron and Southey.
 Derozio led Young Bengal Movement. It is a group of Bengali free
thinkers emerging from Hindu College Calcutta. They were also known
as Derozians.

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Publications
1. Poems (1827)
 Harp of India — The poem (Sonnet) celebrates the glorious past of India
and mourns over its loss because of British Rule. Harp is a symbol of
Indian poets who were earlier famous but under the British Rule, they are
suffering.
 Songs of the Hindoostani Minstrel - Compared the vision of the lovers to
Browning’s ‘The Last Ride Together’.
2. The Fakeer of Jungheera : A Metrical Tale and Other Poems (

1828)
 The Faker of Jungheera

 To India – My Native Land
The Fakeer of Jungheera
 Compared to Byron’s Turkish Tales

 Nuleeni, a high-caste Hindu window, rescued from the funeral pyre (
being Sati) by a robber, she loves him, Robber was killed, heart broken
Nuleeni also dies.
 Fakeer ( Robber) – lover (Muslim) – Nuleeni
 It is a protest against the practice of Sati in the contemporary orthodox
society.
To India — My Native Land
 Petrarchan sonnet
 Shows influences of Romantic poets
 The poem praises patriotism and a love of freedom.

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My country! In thy days of glory past

A beauteous halo circled round thy brow
and worshipped as a deity thou wast—
Where is thy glory, where the reverence now?
Thy eagle pinion is chained down at last,
And grovelling in the lowly dust art thou,
Thy minstrel hath no wreath to weave for thee
Save the sad story of thy misery!
Well—let me dive into the depths of time
And bring from out the ages, that have rolled
A few small fragments of these wrecks sublime
Which human eye may never more behold
And let the guerdon of my labour be,
My fallen country! One kind wish for thee!
Kasiprasad Ghose ( 1809-73)
 The Shair or Minstrel and Other Poems (1830) - First volume of verse by
an author of pure Indian blood.
Michael Madhusudan Dutt (1824- 73)
 Father of Bengali Sonnet.

 Nickname — Timothy Penpoem
Two long poems
1. The Captive Ladie ( 1849)
2. Visions of the Past ( 1849)
The Captive Ladie

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 Prithviraj — Kanouj King’s daughter (captured at hilltop) — Muslim

invader ( Mohammed Ghazini)
Visions of the Past-
 Miltonic blank verse

 Christian theme of temptation and fall and redemption of man.
Toru Dutt (1856-77)
 She visited England and France with her parents and learnt French in a
few months. She translated some best French poetry into English.
1. A Sheaf Gleaned in French Fields ( 1877)
2. Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan( 1883) - Edmund Gosse
wrote an introductory memoir for it.
3. Life and Letters of Toru Dutt edited by Harihar Das
Her important poems
1. Our Casuarina Tree
 She used to see Casuarina tree by her window and remembers her happy
childhood days. She spent with her beloved siblings- Abju and Aru.
 She immortalized Casuarina tree as Wordsworth immortalizes yew trees
of Borrowdale.
 Toru Dutt says in the concluding lines
‘May love defend thee from Oblivion’s cruse’
Opening lines
“ Like a huge Python, winding round and round
The rugged trunk, indented deep with scars ….

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2. Baugmaree-
 Sonnet
 Opening line
“ A sea foliage girds our garden round,
 She describes varieties of trees and then colours and says bamboos the
prettiest.
‘ One might swoon
Drunken with beauty then, or gaze and gaze
On a primeval Eden, in amaze’
 In describing the Seemul’s red flowers she writes
‘ Red, red and startling like a trumpet’s sound’— use of synaesthesia
3. The Lotus — Lily and Rose
Love came to Flora asking for a flower

That would of flowers be undisputed queen,
The lily and the rose, long, long had been
Rivals for that high honour. Bards of power
Had sung their claims. "The rose can never tower
Like the pale lily with her Juno mien"--
"But is the lily lovelier?" Thus between
Flower-factions rang the strife in Psyche's bower.
"Give me a flower delicious as the rose
And stately as the lily in her pride"--
"But of what colour?"--"Rose-red," Love first chose,
Then prayed,--"No, lily-white,--or, both provide;"
And Flora gave the lotus, "rose-red" dyed,
And "lily-white,"--the queenliest flower that blows.
 The Lotus is also a poem by Sarojni Naidu, compared to Gandhi to Lotus
4. The Tree of Life-

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 She imagines a vision of an Angel under the tree who touches the
speaker’s head and speaker’s fear disappears.
Cowasji Nowrosji Vesuvala
 Wrote under the spicy name ‘Chili Chutnee’.
Romesh Chunder Dutt ( 1848- 1909)

 Translated ‘ The Mahabharata’ ( 1895) and the Ramayana
Manmohan Ghose ( 1869-1924)
 His work was published in Primavera: Poems by Four Authors ( 1890)

with Laurence Binyon, Arthur S. Cripps and Stephen Phillips. ( A little
book written by four friends)
Aurobindo Ghose ( Sri Aurobindo) 1872-1950
His short poems

1. The Pilgrim of the Night
2. The Stone Goddess
3. Surreal Science
4. Despair on the Staircase
The Pilgrim of the Night
“ I made an assignation with the Night;

In the abyss was fixed, our rendezvous:
 The poet has made an arrangement to meet Night (here personified)
secretly. The meeting has been fixed in deep and dark pit which is
bottomless; Armed with God’s immortal light in his heart, the poet went

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through the dark and dangerous passage to court the Night. The poet is
moved by God’s inspiration. The religious journey undertaken by the
poet has a sacred mission — to win the heart of the Night.
5. The Bird of Fire (1933)
6. Thought of Paraclete (1934)
7. Rose of God ( 1934)
Longer Poems
1. Urvasie
2. Love and Death
3. Baji Prabhou
Urvasie: A retelling of the Ancient Indian legend of King Pururavas

and his love for the celestial damsel.
Urvasie – A legend immortalized by Kalidasa in his play,
Vikramorvasia. ( Urvasi won through valour)
Love and Death –
 Ruru and his beloved Priyamvada

 Priyamvada dies of snake bite and Ruru brings her back from the world
of Death.
 Remarkable resemblance to the Greek legend of Orpheus and Euridice.
 Similar to the story of Savitri
Baji Prabhou
 Baji Prabhou Deshpande covers Shivaji’s retreat for two hours with a
small company of men against twelve thousands Moguls.
Savitri; a Legend and a Symbol

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 23818 lines
 Twelve books divided into three parts
 Subtitle: A Legend and a Symbol
 Blank verse
 The poem begins in medias res describing the day on which Satyavan is
to die.
 Action takes place on a single day, all the rest being cast in the form of
retrospective narration.
Rabindranath Tagore ( 1861-1941)
 Known as Bard of Bengal

 His compositions were chosen by two nations as national anthems.
 1. India’s Jan Gana Mana
 2. Bangladesh’s Amar Shonar Bangla
 Gitanjali ( 1912) — Nobel Prize 1913
 The Gardener (1913) — Love poem
 The Crescent Moon (1913)
 Fruit-Gathering (1916)
 Stray Birds (1916)
 The Fugitive (1921)
Gitanjali
 Introduction by W B Yeats
 Motto: I am here to sing the songs
 Central theme: Devotion
 Geetanjali means ‘ Songs of Offerings’
 Subject : Devotion to God
 Publication date : 1910 ( Bengali)
 Published in English : 1912
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 Where the Mind is without Fear —

 It is 35th poem of Gitanjali and one of Tagore’s most anthologized
poems.
Where the Mind is without Fear

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic
walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert
sand of dead habit;
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.
The Crescent Moon (1913)—
 Poem on childhood
 ‘The Child’— is the only published poem of considerable length Tagore
wrote directly in English.
Sarojini Naidu (1879- 1949)

Her works
1. The Golden Threshold ( 1905)
2. The Bird of Time ( 1912)
3. The Broken Wings ( 1917)
4. The Feather of Dawn — Written1927 but published in 1961 after
death)
5. The Sceptred Flute ( 1946)

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 Sarojini Naidu’s poetry section is divided into many sub-sections such as

‘ Folk Song’ , Songs of Love and Death, Love-Lyrics etc
 Temple : Naidu’s sequence of love-lyrics
Her Important Poems are
1. The Queens’s Rival — Persian legend of Gulnar and Firoz

2. The Pardah Nashin
3. The Bird Sanctuary
4. The Soul’s Prayer
5. Palanquin- Bearers
6. Indian Weaver
7. The Lotus ( To MK Gandhi)
8. Awake
9. Songs of Radha, The Milkmaid
Indian Weavers
Indian Weavers
WEAVERS, weaving at break of day,

Why do you weave a garment so gay? . . .
Blue as the wing of a halcyon wild,
We weave the robes of a new-born child.
Weavers, weaving at fall of night,

Why do you weave a garment so bright? . . .
Like the plumes of a peacock, purple and green,
We weave the marriage-veils of a queen.
Weavers, weaving solemn and still,

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What do you weave in the moonlight chill? . . .

White as a feather and white as a cloud,
We weave a dead man's funeral shroud.
It is an allegorical presentation of life’s journey from birth to death.

 In three different hours that the questions are put to weavers.
 These hours are break of day ( new-born child), the fall of night (
Marriage veil of queen) and chill moonlight time ( A dead man’s funeral
shroud)
Songs of Radha, the Milkmaid
Radha,the milkmaid goes to Mathura to sell curds. Instead of the cry who
will buy these curds that are as white as the clouds in sky’, what come out
from her mouth is “ Govinda! Goivnda!
I carried my curds to the Mathura fair …

How softly the heifers were lowing …
I wanted to cry, “Who will buy
These curds that are white as the clouds in the sky
When the breezes of shrawan are blowing?”
But my heart was so full of your beauty, Beloved,
They laughed as I cried without knowing:
Govinda! Govinda!
Govinda! Govinda!
How softly the river was flowing!
I carried my pots to the Mathura tide …

How gaily the rowers were rowing! …
My comrades called, “Ho! let us dance, let us sing
And wear saffron garments to welcome the spring.
And pluck the new buds that are blowing.”

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But my heart was so full of your music, Beloved,

They mocked when I cried without knowing:
Govinda! Govinda!
Govinda! Govinda!
How gaily the river was flowing!
I carried my gifts to the Mathura shrine …

How brightly the torches were glowing! …
I folded my hands at the altars to pray
“O shining ones guard us by night and by day”—
And loudly the conch shells were blowing.
But my heart was so lost in your worship, Beloved,
They were wroth when I cried without knowing:
Govinda! Govinda!
Govinda! Govinda!
How brightly the river was flowing!
 Every time either at the bank of Yamuna or Mathura temple she utters
only “Govinda! Govinda!”
 This state of self-forgetfulness makes Radha merge her identity with
Govinda.
The Queen’s Rival
 It is based on a Persian legend.

 Story of Queen Gulnaar and King Feroz.
 She is not satisfied because she does not have any rival in her beauty. At
last her two years daughter proves to be her rival.
The Pardah Nashin

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 The Pardah Nashin (lady behind the veil) leads a life of ease and
confront, shut off from the temptations of the outside world. But feels
totally isolated in this life of security and ease.
 The poem is not a glorification but the condemnation of the very basis of
pardah system.
 No Pardah and no security can prevent the stealthy march of Time which
robs her of her happiness, and fills her eyes with tears. She says
Who shall prevent the subtle years,
Or shield a woman’s eyes from tears?”
 Imtiaz Dharker’s Purdah (1) ‘ Purdah is a kind of safety’
Sylvia Plath’s Purdah ( Here pardah is symbol of servitudes.)
Pardah Nashin
Her life is a revolving dream
Of languid and sequestered ease;
Her girdles and her fillets gleam
Like changing fires on sunset seas;
Her raiment is like morning mist
Shot opal, gold and amethyst.
From thieving light of eyes impure,
From coveting sun or wind’s caress,
Her days are guarded and secure
Behind her carven lattices;
Like jewels in a turbaned crest,
Like secrets in a lover’s breast.
But though no hand unsanctioned dares
Unveil the mysteries of her grace,
Time lifts the curtain unawares,
And sorrow looks into her face..
Who shall prevent the subtle years,
Or shield a woman’s eyes from tears?

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The Bird Sanctuary
 The Bird Sanctuary depicts God’s ideal shelter for every bird regardless
of its identity.
 The poem is addressed to God, the Master of the Birds.
 The God grants sanctuary and shelter even to a bird with broken wings.
The poet herself refers to herself as a bird with a broken wing.
 The poet prays to God, ‘the Master of Birds’ to provide her with shelter
His great sanctuary (Nature). Nature this becomes a sanctuary for
wounded birds like the poetess herself. She says
“ O Master of the Birds, grant sanctuary and shelter
Also to a homing bird that bears a broken wing.”
The Soul’s Prayer
 In this lyric the poet craves for ‘Earth’s utmost bitter, utmost sweet’ and
wishes to be spared no bliss, no pang of pain, and the prayer. Her soul
shall know all rapture and despair.
 God tells the secret that life is a prism of God’s enlightment which
different human being see in different colours and Death is nothing
terrible.
 Thus, both life and Death are divine and the two sides of the same coin
— God’s peace and grace.
“ Life is a prism on My light,
And Death the shadow of My face’
The Lotus
 Naidu compares Gandhi to a lotus. The poet says that like the myriad
petalled Lotus Mahatma Gandhi has countless qualities.

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 In the middle part of the poem Naidu criticizes the invaders awho
attacked and plundered India.
 In the last part of the poem she compares Gandhi to Lord Brahma.
 Miltonic sonnet
“ Thine ageless beauty born of Brahma’s Breath,
………..
Coeval with the lords of Life and Death?
Palanquin –Bearers
 The poet makes the palanquin bearers to describe their burden, beautiful
and delicate young maiden, as a flower, a bird, laugh, a pearl, a star, a
beam and a tear, and so their burden is not oppressive and humiliating but
pleasant and enjoyable.
“ Lightly, O Lightly we glide and we sing,
We bear her along like a pearl on a string,”
Nissim Ezekiel ( 1924-2004)
 Indian-Jewish poet. His family migrated to India generations ago.

 He belonged to a Bene-Israel family. (Son of Israel)
 He was a Teli ( seed-crusher) by caste.
 Born in Bombay.
 Professor of English in Bombay University.
Poetry Collections
1. Time to Change ( 1952) — First collection of poetry
2. The Unfinished Man ( 1960)
3. The Exact Name ( 1965)
4. Hymns in Darkness ( 1976)
5. Latter-Day Psalms ( 1982) — S A Award in1983

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 He says “ Scores of my poems are obviously written for personal

therapeutic purposes”
His important poems
1. Enterprise
 A group of people stated their journey but they find it unfruitful and
labourous. They finally believe that home is the only place where we can
enjoy grace and peace of mind.
2. Night of Scorpion
 Narrative poem, talks about domestic life.

 It begins with the narrator’s recollection of the night when his mother
was stung by a scorpion.
 The poem depicts the Indian community life and prevailing superstitions.
3. Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher
 Speaker says in order to achieve a success in the writing a poet should

adopt the method of a lover and a birdwatcher — wait and silent
perseverance.
4. Background, Casually
 ‘ A poet-rascal-clown was born’ Opening line

 Autobiographical poem
 In London his three companions are — philosophy, poverty and poetry.
 In ‘Background, Casually’ the poet says he was a Jew and in the Roman
Catholic School he was treated badly by Christians, Muslims and Hindus.

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 Nissim Ezekiel says, “I am not a Hindu, and my background make me a

natural outsider; circumstances and decisions relate me to India.’ In ‘
Background, Casually, he states his case clearly.
Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa TS

 It is a satirical poem ridiculing the errors committed by Indians — errors
of grammar and syntax. He pokes fun at the way semi-educated Indians
speak or write the English language.
 The occasion is a party given by Miss Pushpa’s friends or colleagues to
bid her farewell when she is leaving for a foreign country.
Bon voyage — happy voyage
Friends,
our dear sister
is departing for foreign
in two three days,
and
we are meeting today
to wish her bon voyage.
You are all knowing, friends,

What sweetness is in Miss Pushpa.
I don't mean only external sweetness
but internal sweetness.
Miss Pushpa is smiling and smiling
even for no reason but simply because
she is feeling.
Miss Pushpa is coming

from very high family.
Her father was renowned advocate
in Bulsar or Surat,
I am not remembering now which place.

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Surat? Ah, yes,

once only I stayed in Surat
with family members
of my uncle's very old friend-
his wife was cooking nicely…
that was long time ago.
Coming back to Miss Pushpa

she is most popular lady
with men also and ladies also.
Whenever I asked her to do anything,

she was saying, 'Just now only
I will do it.' That is showing
good spirit. I am always
appreciating the good spirit.
Pushpa Miss is never saying no.

Whatever I or anybody is asking
she is always saying yes,
and today she is going
to improve her prospect
and we are wishing her bon voyage.
Now I ask other speakers to speak
and afterwards Miss Pushpa
will do summing up.
Dom Moraes (1938-2004)
Notable works

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1. A Beginning ( 1958) — First collection

2. Poems ( 1960)
3. My Son’s Father (1968) — Autobiography
4. Serendip (1990) — S A Award
5.
A K Ramanujan (1929-1993)
A River
 The poet is talking about river Madhurai city — scenes of flood and
drowning of two cows Gopi and Brinda and a pregnant women.
 A River is a poem on the Vaikai which flows through Madurai.
Love Poem for a Wife –
 The speaker complains that his marriage is not successful with his wife
because he can’t share his childhood with her.
Obituary
 The speaker gives an account of certain happenings connected with the

death of his father,.
Ramanujan’s Other Poems —

1. Relations — Reveals family life
2. Snakes
3. Beaded Fish
4. The Striders
Striders
 Strider is a name of water-insect.

 The first volume of his poem is also named Striders
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 He compares a small insect to prophets.

“ Not, not only prophets/ walk on water”
Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House
 The poem begins with the speaker telling the reader that everything that
comes into his hours always stays. Or, if it leaves, it eventually comes
back again.
Looking for A Cousin on a Swing
 The speaker describes a young girl’s desire alongside images of

childhood.
 The girl recalls her childhood swing with her male cousin and now
desires a sexual experiences in the city — searching for a male probably
that same cousin.
R. Parthasarathy ( Rajagopal Parthaswarathy ) 1934
Rough Passage (1977)

 Collection of poems
 Wrote over a period of 15 years ( 1961-75)
 Poems in three parts dealing with the theme of identity exposed to two
cultures. Three parts are
1. Exile
2. Trial
3. Homecoming
Exile-

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 The first part, opposes the culture of Europe with that of India, and
examines the consequences of British rule on an Indian, especially the
loss of identity with his own culture and the need for roots.
 Notable poem
 Through holes in a wall, as it were
Trial
 Celebrates love as a reality.

Notable poems
Mortal as I am, I face the end
Homecoming
 It exposes the phenomenon of returning to one’s home.

Notable poem
My Tongue in English Chains
Gieve Patel (1940)
 Indian poet and playwright

 Parsi
 Medical practitioner by profession
 Belongs to the writers of ‘Green Movement’ — Involved in an effort to
protect the environment.
 His poems talk about deep concern for nature and expose man’s cruelty (
eg in On Killing a Tree) and sympathy for under privileged ( eg in poem
Servants)
His works
1. How Do You Withstand, Body ( 1976)
2. Mirrored, Mirroring (1991)
3. On Killing a Tree
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Arvind Krishna Mehrotra ( 1940- )
 He says, “A poem comprises ‘games, riddles, and accidents …. and the

poet creates as many accidents as he can.’
 He writes a poetry in which the image is all-dominant.
His Collections
1. Woodcuts on Paper ( 1967)
2. Nine Enclosures ( 1976)
 Surrealist poet
 Mehrotra cites ‘ Manifesto of Surrealism’ ( 1924) as one of the influences
of his work. This explains his addiction to the ‘immoderate and
passionate use of the drug which is the image.
Pritish Nandy (1947- )
Calcutta if You Must Exile Me

 Widely anthologized poem and regarded as a pioneering classic in
Modern Indian English writing.
 It is poet’s direct real life experience of the city.
 He loves the city so much that he doesn’t want to leave it.
 1970 witnessed the arrival of

1. K N Daruwalla
2. Shiv K Kumar
3. Jayanta Mahapatra
4. Arun Kolatkar

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Keki N Daruwalla ( 1937 - )
 He is a police officer by profession.

 His notable works
1. Under Orion( 1970)
2. Apparition in April (1971)
3. Crossing of Rivers (1976)
4. The Keepers of the Dead ( 1982) S A Award
5. Landscape ( 1987)
6. A Summer of Tigers ( 1995)
7. Night River ( 2000)
 His themes are deprivation, misery, disease, and death.

His important poems
1. The Epileptic
2. The Ghaghra in Spate
3. Ruminations
4. Fire-Hymn
5. Routine
6. Death of a Bird
The Ghaghra in Spate-
 Ghaghra is a name of a river in northern India; and the phrase ‘in spate’
means ‘in flood’.
 The poem unfolds the villagers at night fight with the disaster made by
river.
The Epileptic
 A pregnant woman got a violent fit while she was travelling in a

rickshaw. By the grace of God, her pregnancy was safe. But her two
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children were frightened. People came to help her. She was taken to
hospital. At last she was recovered but her husbands was still trembling.
The trembling of the husband may be from the thought about the
excessive hospital fees.
“ I found it was the husband who was shaking’
Death of a Bird
 The narrator goes for hunting with his female companion. He kills a male
monal who is engaged in love making with his female monal. They put it
in a bag. Hunters pony dies. They are terrifies by the sound of jackals
and bears. At dawn they repent for killing the monal. At last she-moral
also dies.
 Daruwalla says, “Writing a poem is like a clot going out of the blood.”
Routine
 The poem is about a face to face confrontation between policemen and a

crowd of agitators.
Ruminations
 This poem is a meditation on violence

 Violence is compared to rain.

Shiv K Kumar (1921-1917)

 K for Krishna
 Notable collections
1. Articulate Silence ( 1970)
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2. Cobwebs in the Sun ( 1974)

3. Subterfuges (1976)
4. Woodpeckers ( 1979)
5. Trapfall in the Sky (1986) — SA Award
6. Woolgathering ( 1995)
 His work reveals a mastery of both the confessional mode and ironic
comment.
His Notable Poems
1. Indian Women
2. My Co- Respondent
3. Pilgrimage
4. Days in New York
Indian Women
 “In this triple-baked continent women don’t etch angry eyebrows on mud
walls.’
 The poem is about the infinite patience that the Indian women practice in
their lives while they go through a triple-baked suffering at the hands of
sun, sex and poverty.
 By triple-backed he means that Indian women are under three
circumstance of the country — Sun ( Hot country) , Sex ( Patriarchal
society) and Poverty ( Poverty at its peak)
Indian Women
In this triple-baked continent

women don’t etch angry eyebrows
on mud walls.
Patiently they sit
like empty pitchers
on the mouth of the village well
pleating hope in each braid of their Mississippi-long hair
looking deep into the water’s mirror

Page 29
for the moisture in their eyes

With zodiac doodlings on the sands
they guard their tattooed thighs
Waiting for their men’s return
till even the shadows
roll up their contours and are gone beyond the hills.
Jayanta Mahapatra (1928 - )
 He is the first Indian poet to win a Sahitya Akademi (1981) Award for
English poetry — For his book ‘Relationship( 1980) ’It depicts the
relationship of self to the historical past, rich cultural heritage. It is
divided into 12 sections.
 Mahapatra’s poetry is reminiscence of the Orissa scene and the Jaganatha
temple at Puri figures quite often in it.
 The poet’s two chief preoccupations are personal memory and Orissa
myth.
 His notable collections are-
 1. Close the Sky, Ten by Ten ( 1971)
 2. Svayamvara and Other Poems ( 1971)
 3. A Rain of Rites (1976)
 4. The False Start ( 1980)
 5. Relationships (1980)
His important poems
1. Indian Summer
2. A missing Person
3. The Whorehouse in a Calcutta Street
4. The Logic
5. Grass
6. Lost
7. Hunger

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Indian Summer
 It contains impressive pictures of Indian Summer such as wind creating

mournful sound, chanting priest, crocodiles moving into deeper waters,
pictures of dung-heap and a wife dreaming during siesta.
The Whorehouse in Calcutta Street
 The poet challenges the dominant notion is society, which sees

prostitutes as somehow subhuman. They give pleasure to men although
they (prostitutes) have their own children and family. ( Dream children)
 The speaker doesn’t have any emotional satisfaction because prostitutes
are completely professional. She says
Hurry, will you? Let me go,’

And her lovely breath thrashed against your kind.’
A Missing Person
 One can see one’s body in a mirror but one cannot see one’s inner
personality and character. The woman is bodily present in her room, but
her inner being is missing.
 Self-knowledge is missing.
Arun Balkrishna Kolatkar (1932- 2004)
 His collection of poems

 Jejuri oscillates between ‘faith and scepticism’.
 Jujuri ( 1976)

Page 31
 ‘Jejuri’ is a long poem consisting of 31 sections. Actually Jejuri is a small

town in Western Maharashtra near Pune. ( from Pune or Bombay to town
of Jejuri)
 The poem sequence deals with a visit to Jejuri,a pilgrimage site for the
local Maharashtrian deity Kandoba ( a local deity, also an incarnation of
Shiva)

 Notable poems from Jejuri are
1. The Bus
2. An Old Woman
3. Chatanya
The Bus
 The Bus’ is the opening poem of the sequence of 31 sections of Jejuri.

 It describes the bumpy journey from the starting point to its destination
which is the temple of Khandoba.
The Old Woman
 An old woman asks for 50 paise from a pilgrim, she says I’ll take you to
Horseshoe shrine. But pilgrim is unwilling to give her money.
Chaitanya
 Kolatkar has used the weapon of irony to ridicule the blind faith of
Maharashrrians who visit Jejuri. Chaitanya is the name of a saint.
“ Sweet as grapes
Are the stones of Jejuri
Said Chaitanya”
He popped a stone
Page 32
in his mouth
and spat out golds.
 His famous poem ‘the boatride’is characterized by a hypnotic stillness.

The absence of punctuation throughout the poem, (small letters
everywhere even in the title of ‘the boatride’.

Kamla Das (1934- 2009)
 Madhavi Kutty
 Became Muslim — Kamla Suraiya
 Novel — Alphabet of Lust ( 1976)
 Autobiography — My Story ( 1976)
 Confessional poet — A poet who candidly and frankly reveals her/his
intimate personal feelings, and sometimes shocking in poetry is called
confessional poet.
 Meena Alexander calls Kamala Das, “a full throated woman’s voice’.
Collection of Poems
1. Summer in Calcutta ( 1965)
2. The Descendant ( 1967)
3. The Old Playhouse and Other Poems (1975)
4. Collected Poems ( 1984) — SA Award
 She suffered a lot from a frustration in love and marriage and says
“ run from one/ Gossamer love to another’’
“ Love become a swivel-door / when one went out, another came in’ (
Substitute)
Her notable poems

1. The Freaks
2. My Grandmother’s House
3. A Hot Noon in Malabar
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4. The Sunshine Cat

5. The Invitation
6. The Looking- Glass
My Grandmother’s House
 Her childhood at Nalapat House.
 The poet recalls her grandmother’s house where she used to live in her
childhood but now the house is deserted as her grandmother has died.
She received a lot of love at her grandmother’s house but now she does
not have any love by anybody and desperately in need of love.
“ I who have lost

My way and beg at strangers’ door to
Receive love, at least in small change?”
The Freaks (An abnormal kind of person)
 The poetess gives her feeling as she lies in bed with a lover. She is not
satisfied with him.
A Hot Noon in Malabar
 The poetess expresses her intense longing to go back to his home in

Malabar. In Malabar noon time was full of life as compared to her
torturing experience of noon in a big city where she settled after her
marriage.
 She thinks of hot-noon time of Malabar when all sorts of person used to
come such as beggars, fortune-tellers, palmist , bangle-sellers.
 The poetess then express the view that noon-time in Malabar was not
only a time for the visits of wild men but also for wild thoughts to enter
her mind, and for a wild desire for love making to arise in her mind. The
poetess says—
 “ ….. Yes, this is
Page 34
A noon for wild men, wild thoughts, and wild love.To

Be here, far away, is torture,”
The Sunshine Cat
 The speaker (poetess) describes her sexual experiences with her husband
and with other men, and expresses her feeling of complete
disillusionment with all her sexual partners.
 Her husband used to lock her in the room. A ray of sunshine fall at he
door of that room. That ray looked like a yellow-coloured cat and that
was poetess’ only companion.
The Invitation
 The persona in this poem recalls her experience of sexual act with a lover
while sea invites her to end her life in its water.
 “ I have a man’s feast in my head today clenching, unclenching..
I have got all the Sunday evening pains.’
The Looking Glass
 Kamla Das offers a few suggestions to women about how to get

maximum possible pleasure out of her sexual experience.
 A girl should stand nude in front of mirror with her sex partner — should
note the jerky manner of ending his urination.
“ Getting a man to love you is easy

Only be honest about your wants as
Woman”

Page 35

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English Litt. for B.A., M.A.

Dr. S.K. Sharma, Asst. Prof. of English