Subjext Indian poetry in

English
Unit – 2
Enterprise,
Poet , Lover and Birdwatcher
Night of Scorpion
01. INTRODUCTION TO THE POET

1 Nissim Ezekiel (16 December 1924 – 9 January 2004) [1] was

an Indian poet, actor, playwright, editor, and art critic.[2] He was a
foundational figure[3] in postcolonial India's literary history,
specifically for Indian poetry in English.
2 He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1983
3 Ezekiel enriched and established Indian English language poetry
through his modernist innovations and techniques, which enlarged
Indian English literature, moving it beyond purely spiritual and
orientalist themes
4 Ezekiel's first book,[9] A Time to change, appeared in 1952. A Time
To Change, changed the trajectory of Indian poetry as it was a new
form of poetry which was Indian English Poetry. Written in 1952, it
emphasizes the cultural context of the post colonial period.
5 A Time to Change may be a small volume with just around thirty-
five pages, but it holds great significance in terms of its quality and
historical importance. The title of the book indicates change
embracing all aspects of Ezekiel's writing or poetry and his
aesthetics
6 His poems are used[22] in NCERT and ICSE English textbooks
7 Nissim Ezekiel is often considered the father of Modern Indian
English poetry by many critics
8 He was honoured with the Padmashri award by the President of
India in 1988 and the Sahitya Akademi cultural award in 1983
9 1952: Time To Change[32]

1953: Sixty poems[32]

1956: The Discovery of India[32

Introduction to the age

10 Postcolonialism (also post-colonial theory) is the critical
academic study of the cultural, political and economic legacy
of colonialism and imperialism, focusing on the impact of human
control and exploitation of colonized people and their lands
11 Indian writing in English has acquired a great significance in recent years
not only in India but all over the world. A large number of Indians use
the English language as a medium of creative expression.
12 Indian English fiction succeeded to win almost every well known literary
prize in the world
13 e.Salman Rushdie’s novel ‘Midnight Children’ won the prestigious Booker
Mcconnel prize for fiction in 1981. It has been recognized as a landmark
novel and important turning point in post independence Indian fiction in
English
14 Indian society in the colonial period was very rigid and was beset
with social evils like the Sati, widow-remarriage, the caste system
and the social, religious as well as all kinds of heygemon. The
primary aim of the writers of this period in most of the Indian
vernaculars was to alert people of the consequences of these evils
and also to bring awareness among them
15 The literary works of the colonial nationalist period revolved
around themes like marginalization, widowhood and widow
remarriage. It was Bankim Chandra Chattopadyaya, who for the
first time, sought to bring the national movement and patriotism in
 his novel Anandmath (1882). Later, it was followed by Ishwar
Chandra Vidya Sagar, Sri Aurbindo, Rabindranath Tagore and
others.

03 Indianess in poetries of Nissim ezkeil

01.Indian English in his poetries
1. Questions of class and economic status in India arise when
one considers Indian English. Even though English is the
official language of India, the usage of English is limited to the
elite, who are able to afford English education.
2. Ezekiel brings Indian English, which is a version of English in
which many verb conjugations and word order choices come
from the speaker's first language, This, in turn, gives Indian
English legitimacy and exposure to those who might have
never heard it before.
3. There were many contemporary scholars of Ezekiel's who saw
Indian English as a degraded version of the English language
and deserving of little literary or academic recognition.
However, Ezekiel brought Indian English into the spotlight
through very famous and entertaining poems like "Goodbye
Party for Miss Pushpa T.S.," "Ganga," and "Soap."
Ezekiel‟s poetry seems to be a comment on the Indian social scenario where
he tries to present “what”, “how” and “why” of the various aspects of Indian
society. He not only tries to highlight the social facts and problems which
Indians face because of their poverty, superstitions, squalor etc. but also
expresses his deep admiration for the Indian spiritual values. But the
admiration for the Indian spiritual values does not mean that he is not aware of
the degradation or perversion of the social, moral and spiritual values in the
Indian society. He is equally attentive to them as they lead the society to the
way of spiritual hypocrisy
Ezekiel‟s India can be highly individual; at times it can also be subjective to the
point of being quirky. However, his own gift for telling detail and reference
emerges from his outstanding understanding of the society. What is the most
amusing fact of his observation is that his observation does not involve the
rejection of the aspects of Indian society and life. He sometimes adopts critical
language for India. He criticizes her because he loves her. He is ironic not only
about India, but of himself too. He states his position honestly and without
being rhetoric,
India is simply my environment.A man can do something for and in his
environment by being fully what he is,
by not withdrawing from it.
I have not withdrawn from India.2
Then, there are poems like “The Visitor”, which is a comment on the orthodoxy
and blind faith where the calls of a crow are thought to be the sign of the
arrival of some guests. The poem seems to be the disease (i.e. the disease of
corruption) and the cure of the disease in itself. Ezekiel is successful in
depicting meaninglessness of such beliefs

His poem “The Patriot”, in which Ezekiel expresses his deep concern
for the contemporary problems that India faces and again the use of
“Indian English” shows Ezekiel‟s grip on the working of the Indian
mind:
Pakistan behaving like this,
China behaving like that,
It is making me very sad, I am telling you
And the use of typically Hindi words like “Rama Rajya”, “Lassi”,
“Aashram”, “Guru”, “Chapati”, “Paan” further add the Indian flavour
to the English language.
His poems like “Tribute to Upanishdas”, “Hymns in Darkness”,
“Counsel”, “Process”, “Theological” etc. are the proof of Ezekiel‟s
knowledge regarding Hindu scriptures like“Gita”,“Upanishads” and
“Vedas”. Many a time, while going through the poems one feels as if
Ezekiel is translating the preaching of Lord Krishna. If there are some
poems which reflect his identification with India and his religious
thinking, he has also composed some poems which lead to the
picturisation of the perversion of such values and ideals
In the poem „Guru” while commenting on the present day‟s religious
contractors, he asks:
If saints are like this,
What hope is there then for us.10

04Themes in Nissim Ezekiel ‘s poetry

Indian Identity
This is perhaps the most challenging and controversial theme that
surfaces in the poetry of Nissim Ezekiel. The idea of the “Indianness”
of a work manifests time and again in his poetry. The content
written by Nissim Ezekiel is very Indian in its social context. Poems
like “Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa T.S.” and “Night of The
Scorpion” deal with extensively Indian issues, such as the prestige
accorded to the English language, and the role of superstitions. In
“Night of the Scorpion,” the speaker recalls an incident from his
childhood in which his mother was stung by a scorpion. The poem
uses colloquial but musical language to relay the memory, and
introduce questions of class difference, collective mythology,
religion, and family.

Rooted in Native Soil

Ezekiel has endeavored to identify himself with his environment and
he has proved that the roots and stems of great poetry are found in
the native soil. But the poet with the immaculate perfection of his art
universalizes his environmental ethos.
Themes
Love has occupied a central position in the realm of Indo-English
poetry and Ezekiel has used it with superb artistic excellence. He has
beautifully portrayed love and sex in his poems. With all frankness
and openness, he express suitably in the Indian situations and
contexts. He describes from A Time To change to Latter- Day Psalms
his journey from lustful passion to serene feelings of love.
All great Indian English poets during the post-Independence era -
K.N.Daruwalla, Arun Kolatkar, Kamala Das, Gauir Deshpande, and O.
P. Bhatnagar have followed the Ezekiel tradition of urbanity,
identification with environment, art and irony and the importance of
flawless form.
Detachment
His ancestry perhaps accounts for the detachment that he can afford
to cultivate while simultaneously practising inwardness in his
understanding and absorbing the experience of the situation in India.
He is a poet whose Indianness has lent a special interest to the work
of a Jew who was a foreigner settled permanently in this country. He
has exposed in his poems the follies, foibles, weaknesses, and
deficiencies of the Indians. The typical strength of his poetry arises
from the fact that he had ideas firmly rooted in the Indian soil.
Independence and Individuality
It is generally believed that Indian poetry in English, having passed
the phase of imitation and national self-consciousness has attained
maturity through independence and individuality. This self-
consciousness and awareness played an important role in the writing
of modern Indian poetry in English. Much of the critical commentary
on Ezekiel’s poetry is centered on a study of his craftsmanship and his
treatment of modern urban life
Skeptical Self
Ezekiel’s poetic impulse is to pattern the experiences in terms of his
self. At the centre if his poetry, from his earliest work A Time To
change (1952) to his last volume of poems LatterDay Psalms (1982),
there is the same dominant, skeptical self perceiving and ordering
the experiences of modern urban life. The urban experience
constitutes an important segment of Ezekiel’s work. So does rural
experience. Ezekiel was the first poet to allow the significant entry of
realistic rural experience into Indian poetry in English. His poetry
reveals his primary concern with the understanding of the meaning
of his life and attaining self-realization. Poetry seems to be the means
to this goal. Chetan Karnani observes: “Ezekiel treated life as a
journey where poetry would be the chief source of discovering and
organizing one’s life, and that there is a very close connection
between his life and life and his poetry.”

05 (A )Critical anlysis of the poem night of scorpion

1. "Night of the Scorpion," which was published as a part of The
Exact Name, demonstrates a new and emerging aesthetic in
Ezekiel's poetry.
2. Whereas his early poems conformed to a strict meter and
rhyme, later poems like "Night of the Scorpion" adopts a
natural, colloquial meter and tone.
3. This poem was published in a time when Ezekiel was making a
deliberate attempt at formal innovation by using a loose,
seemingly free-verse structure for his narrative poems.
4. Additionally, Ezekiel stopped putting capitals at the beginning
of each line, which allows his later poems to flow much more
easily on the page.
The fact that Ezekiel distances himself from formal poetic
conventions does not imply a lack of care when it comes to the
form of "Night of the Scorpion." In fact, Ezekiel makes deliberate
choices about line breaks, enjambment, voice, chronology, and tone
in this poem which gives it the effect on the reader that made it so
famous to begin with. There is only one line break in this poem,
which occurs right after the speaker's mother is released from her
suffering:
"After twenty hours

it lost its sting.

My mother only said

thank God the scorpion picked on me

and spared my children" (44-48).

This line break is a literal break in the tension of the poem and
endows the conclusion with a quiet depth. The tension in the poem
before the line break comes from two sources: first, that the
speaker's mother is suffering with little prospect of relief, and
second, the tension that the speaker holds between personal crisis
and mocking social observation.

While the personal crisis is clearly on the surface of the poem, the
mocking social commentary is evident through the speaker's tone.
The speaker in the poem, who inhabits a perspective between the
little boy watching his mother suffer and the older man looking
back upon that memory, relays the events of the crisis in a calm and
detached manner. The casualness with which the speaker relays this
scene is incongruous and even alarming for the reader. Even so, the
speaker moves slowly through the events of the poem in one long
stanza without breaks—unhurried and, it seems, unbothered. This
emotional detachment lets the poem speak directly to the reader,
who understands right away what Ezekiel means without having to
juggle emotional pain over the suffering mother.

. In this poem, Ezekiel's irony dramatizes the peasant's, as well as

the speaker's father's, superstition in their desperate attempts to
save the speaker's mother. The speaker does not see the peasants
in a positive light and instead compares them to "swarms of flies" in
their desperation to help his mother (8). Their mixture of Christianity
and Hinduism allows for slight confusion, as they pray to God for
the mother's wellbeing yet also hope for the best in her
reincarnations. The speaker highlights how futile their spiritual
efforts were in helping his mother: "My mother twisted through and
through / groaning on a mat" (32-33). While this perspective does
reflect a slight elitism—the speaker is looking down on the peasants
for believing what they believe—it also indicates the religious and
cultural diversity that India holds. In this way, "Night of the
Scorpion" is a quintessentially Indian poem in that it shows the
meeting of worlds through a sense of community ties after a
specific disastrous event.
Though "Night of the Scorpion" does not use the strict formal
structures that Ezekiel had used in his earlier poetry, this does not
mean that the poem is not rhythmic or musical. The punctuation
and enjambment of the lines cause the poem to flow in the large
first stanza. This helps to build tension and make a large block of
text easier and more pleasant to read. For example, the descriptions
of the peasants looking for the scorpion contain an easy internal
rhythm:
"With candles and with lanterns /
throwing giant scorpion shadows /
on the sun-baked walls /
they searched for him: he was not found"
(11-14).
These lines start out in an even rhythm (with CAN-dles and
with LAN-terns), which is broken by the colon, and the depressing
revelation that the scorpion was not found. In this way, the careful
variation of rhythm throughout "Night of the Scorpion" helps
Ezekiel achieve different emotional effects.
Finally, this poem communicates a tension between urban living
and the natural world that Ezekiel returns to again and again in this
work. The speaker's community, which lives close together and
keeps itself informed about its residents, rose up in this work to
surround the mother as she burned. The antagonist of the poem is
the scorpion, who is forgiven by the speaker very early on since he
was indoors simply for survival:
"Ten hours /

of steady rain had driven him

/ to crawl beneath a sack of rice" (2-4).

In this way, the true force of chaos and evil is the rain, which drove
the scorpion indoors and beats down upon the speaker and his
family throughout their ordeal:

"More candles, more lanterns, more neighbours, /

more insects, and the endless rain" (30-31).

Like "Monsoon Madness," the natural world is a force of its own in

"Night of the Scorpion" and is directly responsible for all of the
characters' troubles.

05 (B)Critical analysis of poet , lover and birdwatcher

Summary
In "Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher," the speaker describes the process of
writing poetry and compares it to being a lover or a birdwatcher.
The speaker notes that "to force the pace and never to be still" will
not get one very far if one wants to "study birds / or women" (lines
1-3). The speaker then reveals the point of these comparisons: "The
best poets wait for words" (3).

The speaker notes that this waiting should not be strenuous and
instead should be as peaceful as "patient love relaxing on a hill" (5).
From this relaxation, the poet/lover/birdwatcher can notice details,
like a bird's wing or the moment a woman gives in to love.

The speaker moves on to say that he finds much more meaning

from "slow movement" (11). In order to find the rarer birds, the
speaker advises, one must go off the beaten path toward areas that
are "remote and thorny" (15). Once one arrives at such a location,
the bird or woman one was chasing will "slowly turn around" (16).
Poetic creativity is discovered in this place, a power so
transformative that because of it, "the deaf can hear, the blind
recover sight" (20).
Analysis
"Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher" is known as one of Ezekiel's more
'serious' poems, as is evidenced by the content and the form.
Ezekiel does not use an ironic tone at all in this poem, which is
relatively rare for him. The seriousness of the content is reflected in
a strict meter and rhyme scheme. The capitalizations at the
beginning of each line have returned. Additionally, the poem is
broken up into two stanzas with two lines each, which visually
signals symmetry and perfection for the reader. All of these formal
elements slow the reader down and force her to digest that which
she is reading and in turn take it more seriously.

Because this poem is essentially about writing poems, it can be

classified as an ars poetica. Ezekiel has written many an ars
poetica throughout his career, but "Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher" is by
far his most famous. Perhaps this is because it is only partly about
the writing process; the rest of the poem is about nature and love.
In fact, the transition from one image to another is so seamless in
this poem that the poet (and his poem), lover (and his woman), and
birdwatcher (and his birds) melt into one persona in order to carry
the poem to the end.
This poem contains the theme of self-examination, which pops up
again and again throughout Ezekiel's work. He notes that his
process is hardly orthodox: "and sense is found / By poets lost in
crooked, restless flight" (18-19). It is this "restless" flight that the
poet is forced to complete in the search for inspiration. Likewise, the
bird in the poem is symbolic for the quest for self-knowledge, which
turns out to be elusive, restless, and often rare in Ezekiel's writing. In
the same vein, the female image can be read as representing a
fertile creative impulse. No real advancements are made in the
poem, however, until the poet, lover, and birdwatcher become one.

05 (C)Critical anlysis of enterprise

https://www.indianenglishlit.com/2022/07/poem-
enterprise-by-nissim-ezekiel-summary-and-critical-
analysis.html
conclusion
enterprise
His poem ‘Enterprise’ is a master piece, a gem of poetry which
demonstrates poet’s postcolonial attitude through the focus on modern
man’s search for identity. By the metaphoric journey in search of peace and
spirituality, the poet highlights postcolonial quest for self and identity. The
poem displays how the enthusiastic spiritual journey to achieve peace and
identity ends with disillusionment as the members of the group attain
nothing but a spiritual bankruptcy. Closing lines of the poem steals the show
as these lines reveal deep thoughts of the poet. He writes:
“When finally, we reached the place We hardly knew why were there
The trip had darkened every face
Our deeds were neither great nor rare
Home is where we have to earn our grace.]

But all end in a heartbreak as they fail to find any significance of

the tiresome journey and their disillusionment is total. They end
their journey with the realisation that ‘Home is where we have to
earn our grace.’ They learn it that home is the best place to attain
peace and grace and home can identify an individual the last line
reveals that the effort to escape from reality of life is futile. We
have to accept ‘home’ as the ultimate reality which can provide us
peace, security and identity