INDIAN WEAVERS

- By Sarojini Naidu
 About Sarojini Naidu :
Sarojini Naidu (actual name: Sarojini Chattopadhyay) was an Indian political activist, feminist and
poet. She was the first Indian woman to be president of the Indian National Congress. Her work as a
poet earned her the sobriquet 'the Nightingale of India‘ or ‘Bharat Kokila.’
Writing Career :
1. She led an active literary life and attracted notable Indian intellectuals. At the age of 12, she
started writing.
2. Maher Muneer, her play which was written in Persian impressed the Nizam of the Kingdom of
Hyderabad.
3. Her English poetry took the form of lyric poetry in the tradition of British Romanticism.
4. She was also famous for her vivid use of rich sensory images in her writing, and for her
depictions of India.
5. Her first volume of poetry was published in 1905 named The Golden Threshold. She was
elected as a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1914. 
Writing Career and Legacy
1. In 1912, her second and most strongly nationalist book of poems, The Bird of Time, was
published.
2. Her collected poems that were written in English have been published under the titles The
Sceptred Flute (1928) and The Feather of the Dawn (1961).
3. Sarojini Naidu's work as a poet earned her the sobriquet 'the Nightingale of India' or Bharat
Kokila' by Mahatma Gandhi due to colour, imagery, and lyrical quality of her poetry.
4. Her poetry consists of both children's poems and various other themes including patriotism,
romance, and tragedy. 
5. She was known as “One of India’s Feminist Luminaries.’’13 February is observed as National
Women’s Day to commemorate the birth anniversary of Sarojini Naidu.
6. Popularly she was known as the ‘Bharat Kokila.’ Edmund Gosse called her “the most
accomplished living poet in India "in 1919.
 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,

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.
 Critical Analysis:
• Indian Weavers by Sarojini Naidu is a short exquisite lyric, highlighting, with appropriate
symbols and images, the great importance of the weavers’ occupation in human life. Though
poor, simple and uneducated folks, they play a very significant role in the national life, and are
indeed the backbone of human society. Though the poem is symbolic in nature and has a meaning
in it, the poetess succeeds admirably in retaining the simplicity and tilting music of the folk song
in it.
• The poem, Indian Weavers is very short and very appealing; in twelve lines the poetess given a
symbolic presentation of man’s journey from birth to death with remarkable economy and force.
The poem is typically Indian, set in Indian background, and, as the title suggested, Sarojini Naidu
has particularly the Indian weavers in mind while describing the nature and value of their work.
• With inherent sympathy and lively sensibility the poetess fondly imagines that the weavers weave
different kinds of cloth at different hours of the day, to be worn by different kinds of people on
different occasions. At day-break they weave bright blue robes for a new-born child, at night-fall a
bright multi-coloured garment for the marriage-veiled of a queen, and in the chill moonlight a
white cloth for ‘a dead man’s funeral shroud.
 Critical Analysis:
• The moods of the weavers also change with the types of garments they weave: in the morning they wave a
‘gay garment’, and in the evening a ‘bright’ garmen’t: both the words ‘gay’ and ‘bright’ suggest an
inner happiness and joy in their hearts in doing their work. But in the cold moonlight they become ‘solemn
and still’ for then they weave a white cloth for the funeral shroud of a dead man. Whatever might be the
theories about death it is undeniable that parting is always sad and painful.
• The poem, however, is not a simple as it appears to be, and under the surface meaning there is also a deep
hidden meaning of great philosophical and allegorical import. The different kinds of cloth woven by the
weavers at different times of the day are symbolic of the very pattern of life itself- both grave and gay.
• Indian Weavers is an allegory of man’s life and as, C. D. Narasimhaiah says, “Here, in twelve lines, in an
elliptical, allusive, and symbolic presentation of life’s journey from birth to death” (The Swan and the
Eagle). Symbolically the weavers are not simple poor folks, working at all hours of the day to earn their
livelihood, and producing clothe to be worn by man from his birth to death. They are the Fates of Greek
mythology, weaving the web of life itself. In Greek mythology Fates are three goddesses (sisters)-Clotho,
Lachesis, and Atropos who control man’s life and destiny, and determine his birth, life and
death. Clotho spins the thread of human life, Lachesis determines the length of the thread of life,
and Atropos cuts the thread of life.
Critical Analysis:
• Explaining the poem in the context of Hinduism, the weavers stand for the Hindu Trinity-
Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh. They are the lords of man’s destiny, and they work endlessly like the
weavers weaving from morning till night. Brahma, the lord of creation, sitting on a lotus coming
out of the blue seas, represents the blue of the halcyon wings of the first stanza; Vishnu, the god of
prosperity-marriage, wealth and affluence-represents the splendor of the peacock plumes of the
second stanza; and Mahesh (Shiva), the god of destruction and death, besmirched in ash,
corresponds with the white feather of the bird of the third stanza.
• They are all depicted as engaged in their different jobs of wearing a child’s robes, marriage-veils,
and funeral shroud, symbolizing birth, prosperity, and death. The relation of three different times-
day-break, night-fall, and moonlight with the cloth woven in each, makes the symbols very
appropriate and appealing.
Structural Analysis:
• Indian Weaver is in question answer form. In each stanza a question is asked of the weavers in
the first two lines and answered by hem in the remaining two lines.
• It contains three quatrains, in which each verse is a tetrameter (i.e. a verse of four measures or
fret), with variations of lambs and trochees. 
• The rhyme, scheme is  a a b b.
• The poem is remarkable for its simplicity of language and diction, sympathetic presentation of the
weavers’ lives, symbolic and philosophic texture, colourful picture of Indian life and chaste music.
•  The weavers render an invaluable service to humanity, and looking from the symbolic and
philosophic point of view, their work assumes an importance of its own.