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Chapter-IV:
Quest for Self in the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel
Nissim Ezekiel is a poet of modern era presenting the authentic crisis of
existence of modern man. His poetry emerges from a self-questioning
attitude. Here is a poet who believed that, “A writer must make life
difficult for himself.” (In an interview with Imtiaz and Anil Dharker,
Nissim Ezekiel Remembered. ed. Havovi Anklesaria. New Delhi: Sahitya
Akademi, 2008, p. 46). He treats life “as a journey where poetry is the
source through which he could discover himself. The developing body of
his poems expresses his personal quest for a satisfactory way of living in
the modern world.” (Mahan, Shaila. The Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel. Jaipur:
Classic Publications, 2001, p. 193). The poet made his intention to search
his real self through writing as early as 1950 when he wrote a letter to his
sister Asha Bhende from London. In the letter Ezekiel reiterated that,
“There was no alternative if I am to live a creative life. There is no other
life for me. In a sense, of course, I am beaten, since I cannot organize my
life as a whole. Nevertheless, fidelity to the poetry of it is a great saving
factor. I do not wish to make excuses nor draw attention to the lives of
the poets and their characteristic shortcomings. I want to be practical too
and to stand on my own feet.” (Bhende, Asha. ‘Remembering Nissim’,
Nissim Ezekiel Remembered. ed. Havovi Anklesaria. New Delhi: Sahitya
Akademi, 2008, p. 6)
In a Foreword to Nissim Ezekiel, a publication by Sahitya Akademi, Keki
Daruwalla introduces Ezekiel in the following words: “The contribution
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of Ezekiel becomes all the more stark in comparison ruthless analysis of
ones own motives and passions, the reflection on inner turbulence in
poetry, doubt and self doubt and the questioning of the scriptures, all this
was new. (Daruwalla, Keki. ‘Foreword’, Nissim Ezekiel, Shakuntala
Bharvani. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2008. p. x)
In the poem ‘Subconscious’ the poet talks about his divided self:
Consciously, I ask my sub-conscious
To supply me with a poem.
It sends up this harsh message:
You have not turned to me so long,
I shall not speak now. (Collected Poems, p. 271)
According to Geetha Ganapathy-Dore, in this poem Ezekiel refers to the
divided self of psycho-analysis. She writes that, “The self of which
Ezekiel here refers to as a modernist is not the old unitary self of
psychology but the divided self of psychoanalysis. Naturally he pokes
fun at Freud by transposing the id and ego as a married couple living in a
two-storied house.” (Ganapathy-Dore, Geetha. ‘Language as Instrument
of Humor, Irony and Satire in Ezekiel’s Poetry’, Nissim Ezekiel
Remembered. ed. Havovi Anklesaria. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi,
2008, p. 478).
Amidst so many options available for ‘nirvana’ the persona is as
confused as the modern man, as in ‘Family, from Songs for Nandu
Bhende’:
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Should we take to meditation,
Transcendental, any other?
Should we take to Zen?
We cannot find our roots here,
Don’t know where to go, sir,
Don’t know what to do, sir,
Need a Guru, need a God.
All of us are sick, sir. (CP, p. 243)
The quest of Nissim Ezekiel can best be introduced by quoting the poet
from ‘Transparently’. The poetic statement is both declaration of his
dilemma and the ways through which he wants to solve it:
All I want now
Is the recognition
Of dilemma
And the quickest means
Of resolving it
Within my limits. (CP, p. 150)
Explaining the source and intention of his writing, Ezekiel also
emphasized the ‘introspective’ nature of his writing. He said, ‘And
writing is, for me, a way of copying with the tension between my inner
life and the outer life. Looking back, this from the earliest days seems to
be the main source of my writing. Very other source is somehow related
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to it-even the experience of other people. My poems are often
introspective and, therefore express self-criticism and self-doubt. I also
write about my relationship with other people, love, sex, the individual in
society, etc. (As quoted by Bharvani, Shakuntala. Nissim Ezekiel. New
Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, p. 128)
He will not crave for the superhuman or the impossible. He will not
hanker after what he cannot attain. According to Indu Saraiya, “a
‘longing’ to live life on many frontiers on his own terms with the courage
of his own convictions rather than on received wisdom had surfaced quite
early in Nissim’s life.” (Saraiya, Indu. ‘Nissim, Lightly’, Nissim Ezekiel
Remembered. ed. Havovi Anklesaria. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi,
2008, p. 37) All he desires is resolution and determination and balance.’
(Bharvani, Shakuntala. Nissim Ezekiel. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, p.
15). Havovi Anklesaria mentions the writer’s progress in the following
words: “The LSD trips, the job – trotting and women were part of the
messy business of nurturing the muse by new stimuli, new experience so
as to make it more than the whimsy of the occasional moment, the flash
in the frying pan. And part of this bohemian enterprise was the cold
London basement room, and in later years, the forbidding murkiness of
the retreat. He was not entirely successful in converting this self-enforced
isolation into the ivory tower that he might have liked it to be; he was
fully aware that in order to survive as a writer one had to engage with the
outside world.” (Anklesaria, Havovi. ‘Introduction’, Nissim Ezekiel
Remembered. ed. Havovi Anklesaria. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi,
2008, p. xxvi).
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Shakuntala Bharvani reads ‘A Time to Change’ as a beginning of poet’s
journey for the meaning of life but regards ‘Sixty Poems’, the poet’s
second volume of poetry, essentially as search for identity. She presents
the case by referring to the comments of Linda Hess: “Whereas ‘A Time
to Change’ , may be read as the beginning of the poets journey, his
expression of commitment to his craft, his firm resolve not to be led
astray into other areas, the second collection ‘Sixty Poems’, may be seen
as a quest for identity and harmony. Linda Hess, a Fulbright scholar in
India, and a close friend of Ezekiel, put this very succinctly, when she
stated in an essay in Quest in 1966 that Ezekiel struck her as “an endless
explorer of the labyrinths of the mind, the devious delving and twisting
of the ego, and the ceaseless attempt of man and poet to define himself,
to find through all the myth and maze a way to honesty and love”.
(Bharvani, Shakuntala. Nissim Ezekiel. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, p.
14)
Keki Daruwalla terms Ezekiel as essentially “a poet of inner conflict, of
love, passion, the constricting role of the mind, social inhibitions, and
mental states. The poet ruminates on privacy; enigmas, quiescence and
this mode don’t easily lend itself to striking imagery.” (Daruwalla, Keki.
‘Nissim Ezekiel: Perched on Hyphens, between Poetry and Prayer, Soul
and Flesh’, Nissim Ezekiel Remembered. ed. Havovi Anklesaria. New
Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2008, p. 406) Bruce King rightly introduces
Nissim Ezekiel in the following words: “Ezekiel had his own distinctive
personality, character, and themes which he expressed within the
perspective of a modern intellectual. He brought to Indian English poetry
the skepticism, restlessness, feeling of alienation, openness to experience,
self – consciousness and quest for some meaning to life that is as much a
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part of the modern mind.” (King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets, Second
Edition. New Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 31)
Nissim Ezekiel is fundamentally a poet who uses poetry as a tool
partially as a vocation and completely as a tool to search the self. From
the first collection of poetry, the poet has made his intention clear: to
seek the real identity by pursuing the art of poetry. Shakuntala Bharvani
rightly comments that: “It is apparent from this first collection that
Ezekiel is attempting to set a pattern of work and literary discipline for
himself. He is determined that he must pursue the path of the man of
letters and not permit worldly distractions and other factors to divert him.
Though still a novice, dissatisfied, frustrated and unhappy, he seeks to be
disciplined so that he can find his own poetic voice.” (Bharvani,
Shakuntala. Nissim Ezekiel. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, p. 3)
There is also a kind of desperation in the poetic voice in some of the
poetry. Since poem is shaped with the language, it is inevitable tool for
the poet. But at the same time, the poet is not sure if any thing can really
be conveyed through language. The poem titled as ‘Speech and Silence’
speaks volumes on this theme:
Man is alone and can not tell
The simplest thing to any friend.
All speech is to himself, others
Overhear and miss the meaning.
And yet to speak is good, a man
Is purified through speech alone,
Asserting his identity
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In all that people say and do. (CP, p. 53)
The poet seeks release from the established pattern of life which is
predetermined by the conditioned mind, conditioned by religion beliefs
and the structure of society:
But when the mind determines everything
The leap is never made (CP, p. 3)
The poet persona is conscious of the effects of society on him. He doesn’t
crave to sound moralist and puritan while confessing that he can not not
be affected by the corruption of the society. In the words of Shaila
Mahan: “Ezekiel wants to point out that living in a modern city, leads to
loss of vigor and corruption of the essential self. It reduces man to the
level of economic man, one whose psychological motivations are thought
of largely in terms of self – interest.” (Mahan, Shaila. The Poetry of
Nissim Ezekiel. Jaipur: Classic Publications, 2001, p. 53)
The mechanical existence of the modern man is stressed in the following
lines of the poem ‘Encounter’:
The city pressed upon me; shops, cinemas and
Business houses
Spoke in unambiguous accents. Only the people said
Nothing.
They bought the evening papers, hurried to a tube
Station,
Ceasing to exist. (CP, p. 35)
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Dr. Shaila Mahan rightly observes that, “The modern city has its
dehumanizing effect. The place is not necessarily Bombay, but any place
where man loses identity. The bleak picture of the city deprived of
human sensitivity, seething with poverty, dirt, squalor and noise comes
vividly before our eyes by the use of concrete imagery. The images –
‘slums’, ‘seasons’, ‘rains’, ‘hawkers’, ‘beggars’, ‘processions’, ‘drums’,
‘purgatorial lanes’ are seen allied to the image of city. The use of
‘purgatorial lanes’ takes us to the great Italian poet Dante. The notions of
suffering, doom, punishment signified by ‘purgatorial’ adds to the horror
of the city. The city emerges as an image of inferno where the modern
city dweller is placed to suffer and carve his way out.” (Mahan, Shaila.
The Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel. Jaipur: Classic Publications, 2001, p. 55).
For Ezekiel, there can not be a phenomenon like existing in isolation. In
the poem ‘Double Horror’, he explicitly narrates the effects of such
reciprocacity:
I am corrupted by the world, continually
Reduced to something less than human by the crowd,
Newspapers, cinemas, radio features, speeches
Demanding peace by men with grim warlike faces,
Posters selling health and happiness in bottles,
Large returns for small investments, in football pools
Or self control, six easy lessons for a pound,
Holidays in Rome for writing praise for toothpastes,
(CP, p. 7)
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And again in the same poem, he confesses:
Corrupted by the world I must infect the world
With my corruption. This double horror holds me
Like a nightmare from which I cannot wake, denounced
Only by myself, to others harmless, hero,
Sage, poet, conversationalist, connoisseur
Of coffee, guide to modern Indian Art
Or Greek antiquities. (CP, p. 8)
Ezekiel treats life as a journey where poetry is the main source of
discovering his identity, his true self, but Geetha Ganapathy-Dore warns
us not to confuse the persona with the poet. She suggests that, “but we
would do well not to confuse the poet with his satirical self which is an
assumed theatrical role to expose the follies and vices of society and
bring contempt and derision upon flouted aesthetic and moral values.
Nissin Ezekiel is at time the indignant whistle blower, at times the
cynical observer and at times the mouthpiece of simple common sense.”
(Ganapathy-Dore, Geetha. ‘Language as Instrument of Humor, Irony and
Satire in Ezekiel’s Poetry’, Nissim Ezekiel Remembered. ed. Havovi
Anklesaria. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2008, p. 482)
Although he is not a proclaimed romantic, the ‘I’ in his poetry is
constantly referring to the journey of the inner self. The seven volumes of
poems written by him between 1952 and 1988 have attracted
considerable critical attention from scholars both in India and abroad.
The central themes with which he deals are man-woman relationship,
contemporary Indian life and the urban milieu, alienation, search for a
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poetics, personal integration, cross-cultural encounters, a search for
spiritual values and a quest for identity. The search started with the first
volume of poetry ‘Time to Change’. Bruce King remarks: “The way to
live to avoid emptiness and extremes is a concern of ‘A Time of Change’,
the title poem which begins the volume and which is dedicated to
Ezekiel’s mother. It is about having left home and fallen into a mood of
hollowness and sterility… As the title indicates, this is a poem about
choosing, a poem of decision… His ideal in ‘A time to Change’ is a
curious mixture of being a poet and having a fairly conventional life.”
(King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets. New Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 33)
Dr. Shaila Mohan regards Nissim Ezekiel’s first volume A Time to
Change as a turning point in the history of Indian English poetry. In her
words: “A Time to Change is a turning point in the history of Indian
English poetry. By using contemporary urban images, language and
concerns Ezekiel brought the skepticism, restlessness, feeling of
alienation and quest for some meaning to life that is so much apart of the
modern mind. It expressed for the first time, to use Keki N. Daruwalla’s
words “a modern Indian sensibility in modern idiom”. With Ezekiel,
Indian poetry in English took a new direction moulded by the traditions
of modern poetry, as reformed by W.B. Yeats, T.S. Eliot, Ezra pound and
W.H. Auden. (Mahan, Shaila. The Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel. Jaipur:
Classic Publications, 2001, p. viii)
The poems written during 1950-1 reveal that Ezekiel was born to write
poetry. The energy and fertility was there from the start; and as stated by
Bruce King, “writing poetry was a central part of his life, he was
producing over twenty worthwhile poems a year, and, unlike later, he had
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a desire to preserve his writings in book-form. The poetry was part of the
growing self and not an adjunct to the self.” (King, Bruce. Three Indian
Poets. New Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 36)
From the outset Ezekiel is a poet of ‘touch’ and not of ‘theory’. He has
more trust in the follies of common man than in the wisdom of the
uncommon man. That’s why the persona announces:
Give me touch of men and give me smell of
Fornication, pregnancy and spices.
But spare me words as cold as print, insidious
Words, dressed in evening clothes for drawing rooms. (CP,
p. 9)
The path he decides for his destination is straight forward. The poet-
persona hates ‘devious routes’ to reach the destination. In ‘The Worm’,
the poet-persona gets inspired by the ways of this tiny creature and
thinks:
It moved so straight! Oh God! To think that I
By such absurd and devious routes should reach
My destination. (CP, p. 10)
But in the complexity of the modern world, the persona finds it’s difficult
to find and follow that path, hence:
Then, in bitterness, I crushed the worm,
Sadly determined not to honor more
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It’s easy mocking victory. So now
It’s dead. Pretty worm, where is your strength?
The god who made you to be wiser than
The cunning subtleties within my brain
Shall know by this the anger of man.
Only in anger can I emulate
The worm’s directness. I’ve killed the worm. (CP, p. 10)
Shirish Chindhade states this tendency in the poetry of Nissim Ezekiel
very clearly: “…the mood is permanently one of self-absorption,
inwardness, introspection: all roads lead to the city within, the city of the
soul. There is a consistent attempt at self-search and self-definition. The
holy grail of the search is hidden within the soul and poetry affords
consolation in such a state of mind. It also helps ‘to shape one’s inner
image silently.” (Chindhade, Shirish. Five Indian English Poets. New
Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2001, p. 30)
The persona is observer as well as insider. Once Ezekiel said, “I don’t see
poetry as purely personal expression, separate from its audience.” (In an
interview with Imtiaz and Anil Dharker, Nissim Ezekiel Remembered. ed.
Havovi Anklesaria. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2008, p. 48). There is
an element of attachment as well as detachment in this process of self-
search. The ironic tone of his poetry makes it sometimes impossible to
judge either the persona is really searching the self or making the
mockery of the entire phenomenon called ‘search for self’. Dr. Shaila
Mahan terms the poetry of Ezekiel as complex journey of “restless
rational mind… Ezekiel’s poetry can be characterized as intellectually
complex. It is essentially and ironic, rooted in rationality and common
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sense. It is both the instrument and outcome of his attempt as a man to
come to terms with himself. Being product of restless rational mind
Ezekiel’s poetry is created from paradox, oppositions and contrasts. In
fact his poetry can be seen as the product of contrasting emotions
structured into a balance of tensions and stresses.” (Mahan, Shaila. The
Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel. Jaipur: Classic Publications, 2001, p. viii)
Shirish Chindhade points out the same impulse. He observes that, “…as
an observer and commentator the poet’s identity remains unaffected. That
is why the tongue-in-cheek way of commentary is possible. This ironic
stance is what singles out Ezekiel as a poet. He says, “it seems to be
rooted in my temperament.” (Chindhade, Shirish. Five Indian English
Poets. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2001, p. 34)
But there is no doubt that the persona is keeping even balance between
attachment and detachment. It seems that with the maturity, Ezekiel has
developed a spirit of resignation and detachment towards ‘the kindred
clamor close at hand’. He no longer feels romantically melancholic about
his alienation. He takes calm and clamor in the same stride. As John
Thieme observes that, “…his work is centrally concerned with perception
and his poetic persona is both that of an observer who regards his social
world and his own behavior with a degree of amused detachment, and
that of a complete insider.” (Thieme, John. ‘Introduction’, Collected
Poems of Nissim Ezekiel. . Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. xxi)
It’s not easy to live sans accepted beliefs and dogmas. The mass lives
under the cover of religious comfort. But for a creative writer like Nissim
Ezekiel who has shunned all such ‘oppressors’ the ‘self’ becomes an
oppressor. His attempts are to get release from this inner oppressor:
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It’s fantastic
What a slave
A man can be
Who has nobody
To oppress him
Except himself. (CP, p.149)
The depiction of urban milieu is a common theme occurring in the poetry
of many modern poets. Like Eliot and Auden, Ezekiel deals with the life
of metropolis. Like them Ezekiel too highlights the rootless ness of urban
life and the wound and agonies inflicted by modern urban civilization.
However Ezekiel’s approach to the city is somewhat different from these
poets. He is more exclusively concerned with the Indian setting than with
the continental. His ambivalent relationship to city with mixed reactions
of love and hate generates tension in his writing and further contrasts his
attitude to city with the other modern Indian English poets. Although
Nissim Ezekiel is basically a ‘Bombay poet’, at times this poetic persona
seeks release from this city which ‘like a passion burns’:
Do I belong, I wonder,
To the common plain? A bitter thought.
I know that I would rather
Suffer somewhere else
Than be at home
Among the accepted style. (CP, p.153)
And,
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The city like a passion burns.
He dreams of morning walks, alone,
And floating on a wave of sand.
But still his mind its traffic turns
Away from beach and tree and stone
To kindred clamor close at hand. (CP, p.117)
According to Shaila Mahan, in this poem “Ezekiel has endeavored to
explore the chasm between the city dwellers quest for the cherished ideal
of an unfettered and oppression – less existence and his failure to achieve
even a partial realization of it. In this poem the dilemma of the modern
man who desperately tries to shun and run away from urban life is
expressed forcefully and touchingly.” (Mahan, Shaila. The Poetry of
Nissim Ezekiel. Jaipur: Classic Publications, 2001, p. 67). Commenting
on this poem, another critic John Thieme states that, “His passion is
invariably that of an urban Bombayite, but it is a condition from which he
frequently seeks release. In ‘Urban’ (CP, p. 117) the city becomes an
interior landscape, invading his mind with its traffic, while he longs from
a view from the hills and seeks respite from a location where ‘The city
like a passion burns.’” (Thieme, John. ‘Introduction’, Collected Poems of
Nissim Ezekiel. Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. xxiii)
The search for the self is never and can never be a simple process. There
is bound to be a complexity in the process. It’s really a difficult to search
for one’s own religion amidst the corruption of religions; it’s difficult to
decide one’s own morality amidst the heaps of moralities. Gillian Tindall
observes that “his work and his life were informed by several sets of
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tensions, not just between east and west, but between the sense of
separation from India and the sense of belonging, between Judaism and
unbelief, between thinking of himself as a westernized Indian intellectual
(a distinct category in his generation) and knowing himself to be some
one at once more exotic, more isolated and still more obscure.” (Tindall,
Gillian. ‘Gillian Tindall on Nissim Ezekiel’, Nissim Ezekiel Remembered.
ed. Havovi Anklesaria. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2008, p. 20)
Nissim Ezekiel attempts this quest through out in his poetry. There is a
declared statement that the persona is not intended ‘to be known’ in the
world. Rather the craving is to ‘know’ the mysteries of the world in the
secular language, as it is said in the poem ‘In the Theatre’:
I act to end the acting
Not to be known but to know,
To be new, to become a form and find
My relevance. (CP, p.151)
Bruce King points out that, “A central concern of Ezekiel’s poems
always has been how, in an era of skepticism and secularity, one can live
with a sense of grace, completeness, morality, truth, and holiness. What
is the way in an age of many ways when none can any longer claim
unique authority and when so many have a history of evil? There was the
early romantic life of a poet, then the somewhat naïve assertion of a
settled conventional married patriarchy, then the need to take decisions,
to create a new map of happiness, and from the late 1960s on, after his
LSD trips, the feeling that there was something divine which although
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unknowable can be recognized in ordinary experience.” (King, Bruce.
Three Indian Poets, Second Edition. New Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 68)
Although the search ‘frightens’ the poetic persona, the persona is never
tired of the observation and self-analysis. As the poet’s career develops,
he becomes more and more introspective. The Third demonstrates a
deeper and more serious spirit of introspection and reflection. There are
several poems in the confessional mode and some of these are suggestive
of the poet’s dissatisfaction, both with his domestic life and with his
creative work. In the poem ‘Song of Desolation’, the poet urges:
Come, religion, comfort me.
Your lifeless moralists prescribe your laws,
And make me see
My secret flaws. (CP, p.103)
Shakuntala Bharvani is aware of this development in the poet. She notes
that, “it is clear there is trauma and the writing is a cathartic experience
for the poet. The poet is aware that he is responsible for his own actions
and hence an element of guilt is also apparent in some of the poems. This
is particularly pronounced in the poems ‘Wisdom’, ‘Insight’ and most
especially in ‘Song of Desolation”. (Bharvani, Shakuntala. Nissim
Ezekiel. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, p. 27-8) The controlled self-
reflective movement and grammar of the opening lines of the poem
‘What Frightens Me’ contribute to the sense of mirroring and self-
observation:
Myself examined frightens me.
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It is no accident I am what I am.
I saw the image being formed,
I saw it carnal in the arms of love…
I have long watched myself
Remotely doing what I had to do,
At times ashamed but always
Rationalizing all I do.
I have heard the endless silent dialogue
Between the self – protective self
And the self naked. (CP, p.106)
What is more comforting is the fact that Ezekiel not only seeks the self
through his poetry writing, his entire involvement with the activity of
writing poetry, editing the anthologies of poetry, motivating and
introducing new poets, playing the role of a mentor, finding out the
publishers to so called minor poets, playing active role in the literary
circle make him a person who uses poetry as a tool to come in terms with
the self. ‘Poetry’ is a poem that shows the distinction between the
amateur who dashes off a few lyrics and the artist who makes a life of his
or her craft. One pursues a hobby, the other a vocation, a way of life,
which finds expression in the poem itself, although the calm surface may
not reveal the tensions and conflicts which have gone into it:
A poem is an episode, completed
In an hour or two, but poetry
Is something more. It is the why
The how, the what, the flow
From which a poem comes, (CP, p. 13)
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In ‘Something to Pursue’ (dedicated to his brother Joe), the poet hints at
the fact that poetry is a higher and finer way to achieve sublimination and
dedication to life. The intricacies of life can be better understood through
the discipline of poetry:
There is a way
Emerging from the heart of things;
A man may follow it
Through works of poetry,
From works to poetry
Or from poetry to something else.
The end does not matter.
The way is everything,
And guidance comes. (CP, p.14)
Bruce King very rightly acknowledges this aspect of the poet Nissim
Ezekiel. His (Ezekiel’s) “most important contribution was in the idea that
poetry is a discipline which takes a large share of ones life and is not a
hobby for amateurs. His own life is an example. He self-published his
poetry when there were no publishers in India for serious poetry in
English, he started magazines, he advised magazines, he wrote criticism,
he helped and promoted other poets, he kept writing, was part of most of
the significant publication circles, demanded higher and higher standards,
and generally created a cultural space and network of English – language
poets with connections to modern poetry in the other Indian languages
and to the non – establishment political – intellectual scene. As a social
democrat, Ezekiel was often in the forefront of those concerned with
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preserving personal liberties against both reactionary and government
forces.” (King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets. New Delhi: OUP, 2005, p, 3)
And again he notes that, “A large proportion of the significant history of
modern Indian poetry in English was made by or has some connection to
Ezekiel. He founded, edited, opened the way to, and had influence with
the better magazines and presses which published poetry. Many of the
best poets were his friends, students, or discoveries. He wrote influential
criticism, book reviews, recommendations; he greatly expanded the
cultural space for modern poetry and for the modern arts.” (King, Bruce.
Three Indian Poets. New Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 4)
The poet clearly declares that his search has nothing to do with the false
satisfaction. This may create restlessness for the poet. But it seems
inevitable part and parcel of Ezekiel’s persona and views. This has more
value since the poet likes the contradictions in the ideas of Martin Luther
King. In one of the essays, he wrote: “In the balance and poise of his
ideas, Dr. King seems to me an exemplary thinker. That he is essentially
a man of action makes his sense of proportion and perspective all the
more remarkable. He is singularly free from fads. Brought up as a moral
and theological fundamentalist, he cracked the mould of doctrinal
absolutism, and freely explored the human landscape of complex as well
as contradictory ideas.” (Ezekiel, Nissim. ‘Introduction to A Martin
Luther King Reader’, Nissim Ezekiel Remembered. ed. Havovi
Anklesaria. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2008, p. 241) He is not ready
to accept anything that is wrapped as sugar coated. That’s why he
declares in ‘Nakedness’ (CP, p. 60) that ‘this longing is for nakedness: /
Soul naked, body naked.’ He is not ready to be pretentious about his
search, because he believes that:
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When I pretend to be happy
I let the intellect
Boisterously propel me on, (CP, p.63)
In whatever the poet does, there is a declared intention that he has
nothing to do with the falsity:
That I must wait and train myself
To recognize the real thing
And in the verse and friends I make
To have no truck with what is false. (CP, p.59)
Generally whenever there is a search for self in literature, search for roots
almost becomes synonym for that. But for that case, Nissim Ezekiel is
rather more interested in the current atmosphere and finding oneself in
that given current background is much more important to him rather than
going back to history and relates oneself. The poet persona seeks the
release from the repetition taking place again and again, albeit in atypical
comic style as in ‘Waking’:
When the politician boasted
How he had made two hundred speeches,
‘No, Tom,’ his wife declared,
‘You made the same speech two hundred times.’
So are we all
Making the same speech over and over again.
And now I hear the first birds
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Spasmodic and repetitive-
I know I shall repeat myself. (CP, p. 89)
And in ‘Insight’ the disguise is a ‘crude surprise’ to the poet:
It always seems a crude surprise
When nothing can be seen or heard
Except the soul’s disguise
Ragged in act and word. (CP, p.101)
In ‘Conclusion’, (CP, p.96) the poet declares ‘one learns/ Over and over
again the same thing.’ Neither does the persona seek the power nor the
success in life. His simple cravings are for ‘A point of view,/ a passion
Like Alexander’s/ And something of a saint/ From these come plentitude/
And prodigality/ In gestures of greatness.’ (CP, p.91) The quest is for the
company of lively men and women, and hates the likes of ‘one absorbed
in himself- I prefer the company of spiders.’ (CP, p. 92) So the quest is
not for something ‘beyond the reach’ as suggested in ‘Declaration’:
Whatever is beyond my reach
I shall not reach for, (CP, p.93)
The destination is almost nowhere. Whatever has to be sought is here and
now. So the persona declares in ‘Midmonsoon Madness’:
I know I will go
From here to anywhere-
Which means nowhere. (CP, p.104)
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The persona assumes the stance of an observer while watching the ‘self’.
From this stance of ‘observer being observed’ comes the true sense of
self to the poet:
I have long watched myself
Remotely doing what I had to do,
At times ashamed but always
Rationalizing all I do.
I have heard the endless silent dialogue
Between the self protective self
And the self naked.
I have seen the mask
And the secret behind the mask.
I have felt the mystery of the image being born.
Establishing its dim but definite
Identity. I have realized its final shape
Is probably uncertainty-
This it is which frightens me. (CP, p.106)
In ‘Theological’ (CP, p.156), the poet accepts, ‘Lord, I am tired of being
wrong.’ Because the poet is tired of disguise, he seeks the release:
Even as myself, my very own
Incontrovertible, unexceptional
Self, I feel I am disguised. (CP, p.157)
And again,
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I am tired
Of irony and paradox
Of the bird in the hand
And the two in the bush
Of poetry direct and oblique
Of statement plain or symbolic
Of doctrine and dogma (CP, p.157)
Shirish Chindhade opines that, “Although the modes of traditions and
beliefs of old have not been totally rejected by Ezekiel, he can identify
himself with modern India with greater authenticity. Most of the poems
in Hymns in Darkness bear out this observation. The journey is not down
the memory lane, though the philosophical reflections of the earlier
poetry are no doubt seen in some of the poems in Hymns in Darkness.
(Chindhade, Shirish. Five Indian English Poets. New Delhi: Atlantic
Publishers and Distributors, 2001, p. 38)
In ‘A Morning Walk’ (CP, p.119-20) the persona is an ‘active fool’, who
in the Dantean ‘middle of his journey’ again seems umbilically tied to the
‘native place he could not shun’:
Barbaric city sick with slums,
Deprived of seasons, blessed with rains,
Its hawkers, beggars, iron-lunged,
Processions led by frantic drums,
A million purgatorial lanes,
And child-like masses, many-tongued,
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Whose wages are in words in crumbs. (CP, p.119)
Here Bombay is a ‘barbaric city sick with slums’. Yet it remains the
unavoidable locus, not only of his physical experience, but also of his
imaginative world. Dr. Shaila Mahan observes that, “As an urban poet
Ezekiel has delved into the heart of Bombay in this poem. ‘The city like a
passion burns’, while the helpless citizen gets conditioned to its vulgar
noises. Ezekiel creates a picture of the modern man who desperately tries
to shun and run away from the city’s turmoil but finds himself in a
dilemma:
The urban man yearns for a quiet habitation away from the turmoil and
chaos of the wild city. But his desire to withdraw remains a daydream
against the forceful pull of “kindred clamor close at hand”. Urban reality
becomes a part of Ezekiel’s consciousness.” (Mahan, Shaila. The Poetry
of Nissim Ezekiel. Jaipur: Classic Publications, 2001, p. 56)
The problem for Ezekiel has always been, as in the words of Bruce King,
“how to avoid the bleakness of a purely scientific materialist view of the
world with its lack of values, spirit, purpose, poetry, and to avoid the
confining, repressive orthodoxies of most religions and their
otherworldliness at the expense of this, probably the only life we have.
This confrontation is seen regularly in the poetry of Ezekiel. How to
seize the day without being a vulture? How to give up your ego without
losing interest in the world and in such basic pleasures as sex, love,
success? Thus in ‘The Egoist’s Prayers III’ the Gita’s advice to be
disinterested is questioned by some one who, we must remember, is an
egoist and therefore a persona or mask, not necessarily Ezekiel:
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No, lord,
Not the fruit of action
Is my motive.
But do you really mind
Half a bite or it? (CP, p. 212)
Is Ezekiel being ironic or is he once more demanding that gods world
give pleasure as well as evil, that life consist of sweetness as well as
obedience and self – discipline? There is always the Ezekiel as the
biblical job wanting to trust god but filled with doubts, questions,
emotions that need either an answer or rewards. There are the spiritual
longings for calm, but there is also the world of the ‘passion poems’
sequence: ‘I have lost my reason -/ let it go.’ And the Sanskrit tradition is
not exactly that of Victorian prudery. In ‘passion poem III’ he comments
that whereas the Sanskrit poets freely mention the attraction of ‘breasts
and buttocks’, he is ‘inhibited’.” (King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets. New
Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 55)
Under any circumstances, the poet is not going to succumb to the
accepted beliefs and dogmas of self seeking. Constantly attempting the
human ways to ‘acquire balance’, the poet finds out ‘another way’ in the
poem ‘A Small Summit’
Perhaps there is another way
And I will find it:
………………………………….
Refuse the company of priests,
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Professors, commentators, moralists,
Be my own guests in my own
One-man lunatic asylum,
Questioning the Furies, my patron saints,
About their old and new obscurities. (CP, p.153)
There is a clear deny to the ways of the great in the poem ‘The Great’:
The great can never know how much I love them.
Every day they live and die in me but still
They can not make me great. I am alone. (CP, p.121)
Commenting on the poet’s use of paradoxical constructions in the poem
‘The Great’, Shaila Mahan offers that, “Egoistic” and “self –sacrificing”,
“sensual” and “self – controlled”, “unique” and “universal”, “lovable”
and “damnable”, “selfish” and “sympathetic”, “married happily” and
“sex – frustrated” the poet has used these paradoxical constructions to
create a negative picture. They testify the tensions going on in Ezekiel’s
mind. To express the complexities inherent in greatness, Ezekiel has used
these pairs of opposites.” (Mahan, Shaila. The Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel.
Jaipur: Classic Publications, 2001, p. 116)
Because, as mentioned in the poem ‘Reading’:
Sometimes I do not want to read anymore, but still I do it,
moving up and down the lines of even print, like a train, and
cease to be a man. (CP, p. 33)
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But the poet persona is also aware of the human tendency to emulate
greatness of others, as said in ‘Poster Poems’:
Subconsciously
We all pray
That what is great in others
May be great in us. (CP, p. 208)
Although Bombay is loved and hated by the poet, although ‘Huge posters
dwarf my thoughts, I am reduced to appetites and godlessness’
(CP, p. 26 Commitment), it becomes clear that Ezekiel has decided to
find his real self amidst the traffic, slums, crowd of Bombay. In the
words of John Thieme, “…although the city continues to serve as a
metonym for modern experience in ‘Urban’ and the group of the city
poems that appeared with it, by this point in Ezekiel’s career the centre of
gravity has moved to a Bombay that is an extension of the poet’s own
inner conflicts.” (Thieme, John. ‘Introduction’, Collected Poems of
Nissim Ezekiel. Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. xxv)
In one of his best known poems ‘Background, Casually’, Ezekiel
documents some of the key formative influences that shaped his
subjectivity:
The Indian landscape sears my eyes.
I have become a part of it
To be observed by foreigners.
…………………………………….
I have made my commitments now.
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This is one: to stay where I am,
As others choose to give themselves
In some remote and backward place.
My background place is where I am. (CP, p.181)
Commenting on this poem, Shirish Chindhade writes that, “He has made
his commitments, chosen his islands, found his people and identified the
five elements of sky, earth, air, water and fire. It is quite gratifying that
God has granted him the human metaphor also to make his song good.
This is not a mood of submission, or of resignation, or of alienation. It is
rather the epiphanic moment of reconciliation, identification, discovery
and achievement. (Chindhade, Shirish. Five Indian English Poets. New
Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2001, p. 50) And hence the
ironic warbler sings:
Confiscate my passport, Lord,
I don’t want to go abroad;
Let me find my song
Where I belong. (CP, p. 213)
Commenting on the poem, John Thieme points out that the constant
linking of different phases in his life “seem to be a sense of personality as
a dialogic and a capacity to ‘play/The fool’ that finally brings a limited
form of self knowledge. With this comes a commitment to an Indian
milieu that is harsh and unsentimentalized, but nevertheless recognizably
and unequivocally his own.” He makes the point that, “Yet, even as he is
chronicling this experience, Ezekiel eludes entrapment in the role of
victim by staging his poetic personality as that of a ‘poet-rascal-clown’.
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He adopts his persona in the very first line of the poem and it underlies
the picturesque story of successive disappointments that follows in his
miniature ‘verse autobiography’. These include his inability to find
fulfillment through yoga, Zen, or adopting the role of a ‘rabbi-saint’, his
experience of London- alone and with a woman who has told him he
‘was the Son/Of Man’- which culminates in a sense of failure, travel to
Indo-China, marriage, and various jobs. (Thieme, John. ‘Introduction’,
Collected Poems of Nissim Ezekiel. Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. xxvi)
Ezekiel’s search has nothing to do with the alienation. Although he does
not belong to the so called ‘main stream’ Indian religious life, he has
always tried to regard himself as a part and parcel of Indian milieu. He
declares in ‘Commitment’:
Truly, I wish to be a man. Alone
Or in the crowd this is my only guide. (CP, p. 26)
Talking to John B. Beston in an interview Ezekiel has confessed to
having to face the identity problem as a Jew: “Yes, it did create a
problem. I did have a feeling of things loaded against myself, with no
prospect of getting strength and confidence. My background did make
me an outsider; but it’s too easy to talk of being outsider. I don’t want to
remain negative: I feel I have to connect, and turn the situation to the
positive.” (Chindhade, Shirish. Five Indian English Poets. New Delhi:
Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2001, p. 48). Therefore, the
comments raised by M.K.Naik do not seem valid: “A major shaping
factor in Ezekiel’s poetry is that he belongs to a Bene-Israel family which
migrated to India generations ago. Thus substantially alienated from the
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core of the Indian ethos, Ezekiel is acutely aware of this alienation being
accentuated by the fact that he has spent most of his life in highly
westernized circles in cosmopolitan Bombay. With Marathi as his ‘lost
mother tongue’ and English as his ‘second mother tongue’, Ezekiel’s
quest for integration made for a restless career of quick changes and
experiments.” (Naik, M.K. A History of Indian English Literature. New
Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1982, p. 193-4.)
V.M.Madge points out this aspect of Nissim Ezekiel in the following
words: “Just as there is no love of India that inspires Ezekiel’s choice to
stay, but fatalistic acceptance, masquerading a supercilious pride- a
virtue, perhaps, being made out of necessity- there is something phoney
about his so called alienation. This alienation has nothing existential
about it like that of Kafka or Camus. A sense of alienation often conceals
the frustration of the desire to belong.” (Madge, V.M. ‘Pride and
Prejudice in Ezekiel’s Poetry.’ Makers of Indian English Literature. ed.
Narasimhaiha, C.D. Delhi: Pencraft International, 2003, p. 187)
In one of the interviews he gave, Ezekiel, discussing the phenomenon of
alienation, said that, “I would like to see some alienation among indo
English writers. However undesirable from moral, Social and other
points of view, it has been aesthetically Very productive provided it is
genuine. You can’t Pretend, you can’t play the game of alienation. If
you are genuinely alienated.... and feel you are hostile towards others and
they are hostile to you, you hate their guts and they hate yours; this can
produce great literature. This genuine alienation is really absent.’ (As
quoted by Mahan, Shaila. The Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel. Jaipur: Classic
Publications, 2001, p. 102). Shaila Mahan notes that, “It is a commonly
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observed phenomenon that the Indians who use the English language
feel, to some extent, alienated. The self-imposed linguistic alienation
coupled with the impact of westernization has estranged Ezekiel from his
age-old culture. Torn between the two worlds to neither of which he
appears fully to belong, Ezekiel is acutely aware of his own cultural
alienation. The impact of westernization has estranged him from his own
age-old culture. Nevertheless, he realizes that his roots cannot lie
elsewhere. The paradox of cultural displacement is trenchantly brought
out in the following declaration: “I am not a Hindu and my background
makes me a natural outsider: circumstances and decisions relate me to
India.”
(As quoted from Mahan, Shaila. The Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel. Jaipur:
Classic Publications, 2001, p. 109)
According to Birje-Patil, Ezekiel’s originality lies in his projection of
Bombay as a metaphor which defines the alienation of the modern Indian
intellectual. He notes that, “brought up in the Judeo-Christian and Greco-
Roman traditions and being forced to come to terms with a culture whose
response to life is controlled by ‘a totally different metaphysics’. Hence
the clash or the conflict is inherent to him, as part of a racial memory, a
legacy of the past.” (As quoted by Chindhade, Shirish. Five Indian
English Poets. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2001, p.
48-9)
In the words of Dr. Shaila Mahan, “The acceptance of the Indian reality
adds vitality to Ezekiel’s poetry. He does not squeal or bemoan his lot.
There is a frank representation of facts however grim they are. He relates
himself to modern India in a certain way because not being a Hindu; he
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cannot identify himself with India’s past as a comprehensive heritage nor
reject it. He identifies himself with modern India. (Mahan, Shaila. The
Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel. Jaipur: Classic Publications, 2001, p. 148)
Ezekiel’s persona doesn’t want an upside down change while seeking for
the self through his poetry. In ‘Lamentation’ he declares that ‘The words
of the wise are wasted’ (CP, p.72) on him. The great men only make him
realize his limitations as an ordinary being:
The great provide a patter for our lives,
Illustrates the paradoxes of the real
To which we are exposed, alone. (CP, p.22)
And again in ‘At Fifty’:
I do not want the ashes
Of the old fire but the flame itself. (CP, p.170)
Akshaya Kumar points out to this phenomenon by referring to the poem
‘Blessings’ that “Ezekiel’s vision of change is not fired or sustained by
any compatible revolutionary impulse. The experimental urges of
Ezekiel’s persona give way to pragmatic view of life that instead of
uplifting and elevating his consciousness to great heights delimits his
vision to ordinary human needs or in his own words “normal pursuits”
(‘Blessings’, CP, p.280). Right from the very beginning he does not
harbor any grand, serious or sublime designs to realize his self. Very
modest in his requirements this protagonist does not ask for the moon:
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A bit of land, a woman and a child or too
Accommodated to their needs and changing moods,
Practicing a singing and talking voice
Is all the creed a man of God requires. (CP, p.4)
(Kumar, Akshaya. ‘Human Urges, Existential fears and Evasive Silences:
A (Comparative) study of the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel, A.K.Ramanujan
and Jayant Mahapatra’, Indian Writing in English Volume VI. New Delhi:
Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 1999. p.58)
Struggle to connect; this conflict to be one with the scene around and
thus solve the identity crisis has been an old concern in Ezekiel’s poetry.
The longing for certainty in kinship surfaces, for instance, as early as The
Unfinished Man. In ‘A Morning Prayer’ he says:
God grant me certainty
In kinship with sky,
Air, earth, fire, sea
And the fresh inward eye.
Grant me the metaphor
To make it human good. (CP, p.121)
John Thieme rejects any ‘unitary representation of subjectivity’ while
referring to the quest for self in the poetry of Nissim Ezekiel. He says
that, “Ezekiel’s poetic persona is virtually always a personality in
process, a figure aptly characterized by the Yeatsian title of The
Unfinished Man; and from an early twenty-first century standpoint the
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modernist label begins to seem increasingly unsatisfactory. This may
simply be an example of the extent to which European categories are ill-
suited to Indian contexts. Arguably, though, Ezekiel’s persona resists
Modernist categorization, because while he shares Modernism’s
preoccupation with subjective mental states and the alienation induced by
urban experience, he resists any unitary representations of subjectivity.
His views of character are more post modern than modern; his poems are
peopled by figures that defy simple classification and none more so than
the poet himself.” (Thieme, John. ‘Introduction’, Collected Poems of
Nissim Ezekiel. Delhi: OUP, 2005, p xxviii)
Studying the stylistics of Ezekiel with reference to the quest for self,
Shaila Mahan offers interesting deliberation. By quoting from ‘Case
Study’, she suggests that there is a mingling of personalized quest into
the depersonalized quest by changing from first person to third person:
His marriage was the worst mistake of all.
Although he loved his children when they came,
He spoilt them too with just that extra doll,
Or discipline which drove them to the wall.
His wife and changing servants did the same. (CP, p.125)
In the words of Mahan, the last two stanzas are an “obvious references to
the poet himself because he frequently changed his jobs. Here the poet
uses the depersonalized third person singular as his mask; while he uses
the first person singular as his projected self. With this stylistic strategy,
he is able to point out precisely his state of mind in clear poetic terms.”
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(Mahan, Shaila. The Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel. Jaipur: Classic
Publications, 2001, p. 97)
One of the predominant themes of Ezekiel’s poetry is on the line that if
any thing that is permanent is change. Somehow, he has been constantly
coming to the conclusions that there can be permanent conclusions.
Ezekiel’s persona is not interested in any absolute option. Expedience
and convenience governs his choices:
May your solitude
Taste good,
And your company
Taste good,
Like food
When you’re hungry.
It’s the hunger that counts. (CP, p.281)
He takes up something, accepts half-heartedly, experiments and finally
rejects. There is a modernist who tries out everything but accepts nothing
as finality. Bruce King also agrees with this view: “Ezekiel recapitulates
the experience of the modern intellectual who is emancipated from
tradition by the optimistic rationality of the enlightenment, but who lives
during a time of rapidly increasing fragmentation when rationality has
come to mean accepting discontinuity, relativity, the truth of conflicting
observations, and the logic of the irrational. But at times, as Ezekiel
adjusts changes, adapts, learns, experiences, and self-creates himself, the
model will still combine the enlightened intellectual with Old Testament
gravity as he considers and orders the world to give purpose and
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justification to his life. Atheism, skepticism, agnosticism, belief, and
experiments with Tao, Buddhism, LSD or yoga, are all similar in that the
essential attitude is religious, a search for the now lost way.” (King,
Bruce. Three Indian Poets. New Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 35) And, “Over
the decades Ezekiel’s poetry recorded various phases of a struggle
between personal desires and the wish to be a responsible, rational
member of society.” (King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets. New Delhi: OUP,
2005, p. 7)
The poems- and particularly those first published in the 1960s- portray,
what John Thieme terms, ‘malleable selves’:
The former suffering
Self declined the use
Of woman who were
Willing but unlovable:
Love was high-minded, stable.
Now he wears a thicker
Skin. (CP, p.141)
The extent to which the poet’s self is being staged is even more explicit
in ‘In the Theatre’, a poem in which Ezekiel’s characteristic stance as an
observer is combined with his awareness of the extent to which he is
acting a part, and seeking freedom from the drama:
I act to end the acting,
Not to be known but to know,
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To be new, to become a form and find
My relevance.
Observe and analyze,
Though this is not enough.
It’s not artifice,
It’s the art that finally
Entrances reason
And makes us human.
The actor’s instinct
Metamorphosed,
I am released from drama
With nothing but its scars. (CP, p.151-2)
A poem titled ‘Transparently’ expresses the discontent and insufficiency
of the poet. The poet feels that compared to him, natural objects are
lucky. This sadness is caused by the fact that we are all our own slaves
who succumb to our temptations. A victim of impulses and indecisions
the poet’s worst oppressor is his own self and yet this oppressing self is
also the source of his poetry. This is the paradox, which lies at the centre
of this poem:
Compared to my mind
Rocks are reasonable,
Clouds are clear.
It makes me mad
But that is how it is.
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It’s fantastic
What a slave
A man can be
Who has nobody
To oppress him
Except himself. (CP, p.149)
His poetry reveals that he is neither a saint negating the sensual pleasures
nor a yogi wandering in the thick jungle to attain light, but a man of
parts, a being of the world-participating and belonging. Although the
search is for the calmness of mind, the poet realistically accepts that he is
still a ‘sea and hold within the muffled tumult of a sin’, as declared in the
poem ‘Penitence’:
I will be penitent,
My heart, and crave
No more the impulse
Of a wave.
But I am still a sea
And hold within
The muffled tumult
Of a sin. (CP, p.71)
He takes the unique stance of a modern seeker, liberal in outlook and yet
strong in commitment. For the poet, ‘death’ and ‘perfect peace’ are one
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and the same and ‘life is imperfection’ as described in the poem ‘Sotto
Voce’:
I can not mould the language as desired
Desires are half desires.
Desire for the thing and half desire
To escape from the thing-
Love is partly going to sleep,
I often think of death.
Death or perfect peace,
And life is imperfection. (CP, p.52)
He is quite categorical about his attitudes as he claims he does not get a
sense of religion, sustained from day to day in his life. We do need to
remember that the self and the persona are not always the one and the
same. Although the persona speaks of the self of the poet, it is always not
from the pages of autobiography. Bruce King notes that, “But again one
needs to remember in interpreting the implied narrative of ‘The Third’
that Ezekiel’s construction of a persona, confessional, self – analytical,
distant yet emotional, is art and not pages from a diary. We can suspect
that the feelings in ‘Midmonsoon madness’ are probably Ezekiel’s, but
then many men have at times felt similar:
I know I will go
From here to anywhere
Which means nowhere.
I listen to my own madness
Saying: smash it up and start again.
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I sense the breathing
Of my wife and children
Adding to the chill.” (CP, p.114)
(King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets, Second Edition. New Delhi: OUP,
2005, p. 41)
‘A Conjugation’ (CP, p.146), a poem which foregrounds the extent to
which language mediates the construction of both personality and
relationships:
Pretence, to pretend. I pretend,
You pretend, we pretend,
They pretend,
I pretended, you pretended,
We pretended, they pretended. (CP, p.146)
According to John Thieme, ‘the tension generated by the struggles of this
persona yield much of his best verse’. Writing about this poem, he
comments that, “This poem ends with a plea for ‘An end/To pretension’,
which perhaps suggests a quest for a more stable version of the self and
relationships, but in the poems of Ezekiel’s middle period this quest
remains largely unfulfilled. He remains an ‘unfinished man’ and the
tension generated by the struggles of this persona yield much of his best
verse.” (Thieme, John. ‘Introduction’, Collected Poems of Nissim
Ezekiel. Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. xxx)
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In a poem such as ‘The Professor’, Ezekiel uses an ironic mode through
which he depicts the process of change and victimization in a comic
mode:
How many issues you have? Three?
That is good. These are days of family planning.
I am not against. We have to change with times.
Whole world is changing. In India also
We are keeping up. Our progress is progressing.
Old values are going, new values are coming.
Everything is happening with leaps and bounds.
I am going out rarely, now and then
Only, this is price of old age
But my health is O.K. Usual aches and pains.
No diabetes, no blood pressure, no heart attack.
This is because of sound habits in youth.
How is your health keeping?
Nicely? I am happy for that.
This year I am sixty-nine
And hope to score century.
You were so thin, like stick,
Now you are man of weight and consequence.
That is good joke.
If you are coming again this side by chance,
Visit please my humble residence also.
I am living just on opposite house’s backside.
(CP, p.238-9),
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Although Ezekiel’s ‘Very Indian Poems in Indian English’ appear to be
caricature of Indian mentality and way of living, a deeper look suggests
that these are also the poems which to find out oneself amidst one’s real
background. In the words of John Thieme: “These poems (Indian English
ones) may seem to be specific exercises in genre, but they typify
Ezekiel’s method more generally. Characters speak for themselves; the
poet’s persona is that of a skeptical ‘unfinished man’; the poems nudge
readers to respond to particular implications, but resist authoritative
meaning. Ezekiel’s practice of leaving his readers to complete the
meaning of his poems emerges as a matter of both personal politics and
of social attitudes. And this, too, foregrounds the difference between his
India and that of Naipaul’s polemical generalizations. Ezekiel stops short
of judgment, preferring to operate through observation and tentative
suggestion rather than dogmatic assertion. (Thieme, John. ‘Introduction’,
Collected Poems of Nissim Ezekiel. Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. xxxiv)
Another of Ezekiel’s ‘Indian English’ poems, ‘Goodbye party for Miss
Pushpa T.S.’, also invents a dramatic character through dialogue, but
goes further, creating a sense of scene and occasion as well as a
personality:
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. (CP, p.191)
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In the words of Bruce King, “The very Indian poems in Indian English
began as experiments in writing speeches for his plays so that the
characters would not always sound like Ezekiel. There are, however,
such clear, if contrasting, tendencies as focus on Indian, especially
Bombay, subject matter, use of autobiography as subject matter and
persona, and sense of having chosen a life which has often been
unsatisfying, fears of ageing, attraction to aspects of the cultural fashions
of the late 1960s and early 1970s as a possible source of rejuvenation,
seeking of some form of mental or spiritual discipline as a secular
substitute for the comforts of religion.” (King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets.
New Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 49-50)
Although it’s easy to mention that the poet is constantly seeking the self
through his poetry, it’s equally important to take into consideration the
poetic process which the poet adopts. Many a times the persona becomes
self dictating, and hence the poem takes its own route and creates its
personality. His comments on the poetic process emphasize
impersonality and the need to surrender one’s sense of identity to the
dictates of a particular poem being written at the time. In an essay on
‘How a Poem is written’ he relates this to Eliot’s stress on the need to
surrender the self, but his comments also suggests the classical notion of
a visitation from the Muse. Nissim Ezekiel in reply to a Questionnaire
sent by Shirish Chindhade states that, “I rarely choose a theme, I’m
aware of the fact or circumstance and the feeling that goes with it. I find
in my poems the theme of love, of personal conflict, of disappointment
and frustration from which insights are obtained, of social and
“philosophical” or “religious” experiences which are limited by my
skeptical temperament. I try to remain within the sphere of my actual
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understanding, avoiding the bigger subjects for fear of sounding
pretentious. But of course I sometimes take the risk hoping the tone will
indicate the nature of the statement.” (Chindhade, Shirish. Five Indian
English Poets. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors, 2001, p.
155)
The greatness of Ezekiel as a poet lies in the fact that in his poetry he is
constantly bringing together opposite concepts and trying to reconcile
and harmonize them. As he declares in ‘Second Theme and Variations’
that ‘I am tired of myself, the mixture as before’ (CP, p.78). In the poem
‘Lamentation’, the poet speaks up the inner confrontation:
Desire postponed is death to me
Pursued it rots the bowels (CP, p.72)
The tension is between the pre-occupation with philosophy and real
surrounding. This awareness prevents the poet from drugging himself
with the narcotic of philosophic abstractions. The two polarities in his
poetry, therefore, are life as pilgrimage, an enterprise involving a
movement away from home and like in the actual milieu of the backward
place, the home, in which he is implicated by ties of the community.
Consequently the personal level on which the feeling of loss and
deprivation are communicated is prevented from sliding into fatal self-
preoccupation. ‘Hymns in Darkness’ poems are also good example of
dialectic based on antithesis. An excellent commentary is provided by
Sudesh Misra about this approach that, “Ezekiel’s poems reveal dialectic
based on antitheses: the polar balancing of humility with pride, youthful
wisdom with adult follies, dubious gain with certain loss, and external
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truths with internal lies. The discrete opposites finally congeal in the last
noise of the ambivalent spirit. A symmetry is established which, though
never conceding a positive resolution, nonetheless leads us to believe that
an insight has been gained”. (As quoted by Daruwalla, Keki. ‘Foreword’,
Nissim Ezekiel, by Shakuntala Bharvani. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, p.
xiii)
The quest for a possible metaphysical truth and the harsh empirical
reality jostle with each other in his poetry and give his poetry its peculiar
tang. In the words of M.K.Naik: “Another persistent motif is an obsessive
sense of failure, leading to agonized bouts of self doubt and self-
laceration, revealing the poet ‘in exile from himself”. (Naik, M.K. A
History of Indian English Literature. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1982,
p. 195.)
The poet’s own persona does not escape this kind of scrutiny and he
sometimes chides himself for his Prufrock-like inertia, seeing a
commitment to passion, the one area of human behavior that remains
exempt from his skepticism, as the main escape-route from passivity and
detachment:
There’s no other way
Except to burn
Your bridges, bury your dead.
And not in
Alcoholic language
But in some needed flame. (CP, p.173-4)
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Another noteworthy aspect of Ezekiel’s poetic search is that it is an
human endeavor. In the words of Makarand Paranjape, “His quest for
right perception and more generally for god or self-realization is
constantly thwarted by desires that he himself calls petty or of a lower
order.” (Paranjape, Makarand. ‘A Poetry of Proportions: Nissim
Ezekiel’s Quest for the Exact Name’, Nissim Ezekiel Remembered. ed.
Havovi Anklesaria. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2008, p. 424). He
never aims superhuman cravings that can be termed mysterious. He is
rather interested in knowing the human dilemma in human metaphor.
With regard to this humanness, the language he adopts is that of common
human beings. He never falls in to ambiguities and abstraction of his
search. It seems that Nissim Ezekiel epitomizes the common man’s
search for common goodness in human soul. The language of mystic
people is not the language of Nissim Ezekiel. That can be one of the
reasons why his poetry appears many times prosaic. He makes a kind of
statement that the common predicament can not be described in
uncommon language. One symbolic example can be the poem ‘The
Second Candle’, where in the persona’s wife lights two candles for two
different wishes which the poet’s non-believing mind fails to recognize:
What’s the second candle for, I asked
…………………………………….
Then she turned to me with a cunning smile:
The first candle is for God’s daily blessings
…………………………………………...
The second candle is for a miracle I need
A special favor, a certain turn of events
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What work alone will never bring, (CP, p.296)
Commenting on the poem and the simplicity of the ‘unfinished man’,
John Thieme offers that, “‘The Second Candle’ moves to a conclusion
with the poet being asked whether he understands this dimension of
experience and for an instant it seems as though he will have to commit
himself one way or the other. Predictably, though, his wife moves away
with the question unanswered and the poem ends with the ‘unfinished
man’ expressing a wonder at the pragmatic simplicity of her faith.”
(Thieme, John. ‘Introduction’, Collected Poems of Nissim Ezekiel. Delhi:
OUP, 2005, p. xxx)
Akshaya Kumar rightly suggests that, “Neither the metaphysical ideals
nor the political power enchant the poet persona.” (Kumar, Akshaya.
‘Human Urges, Existential fears and Evasive Silences: A (Comparative)
study of the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel, A.K.Ramanujan and Jayant
Mahapatra’, Indian Writing in English Volume VI. New Delhi: Atlantic
Publishers and Distributors, 1999. p.59)
This element of human search useful to tackle day to day confusions of a
modern man is clearly suggested, and what is regarded as the ‘search
statement’ of the poet, by the poet in ‘A Poem of Dedication’:
I do not want the yogi’s concentration,
I do not want the perfect charity
Of saints nor the tyrant’s endless power.
I want a human balance humanly
Acquired, fruitful in the common hour. (CP, p.40)
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Obviously such a persona does not aim very high. The ideals of
meditation, renunciation or asceticism cannot be practiced in human life.
The poet has a high regard for the teaching of the Upanishads, but the
regard doesn’t convince him to be seed which grows into another seed.
He rather out emphasis on his needs:
I don’t want to be
The skin of the fruit
Or the flesh
Or even the seed,
Which only grows into another
Wholesome fruit.
The secret locked within the seed
Becomes my need, and so
I shrink to the nothingness
Within the seed. (CP, p.205)
And in the poem ‘Advice to a Painter’, the poet’s advice explicitly shows
his dissatisfaction with the ‘God created’ world:
Do not be satisfied with the world
That God created. Create your own. (CP, p.205)
Such aspects betray human living. Therefore the very act of staying still
in front of gyrating beauty is a fictional fallacy thus:
Only Shiva, meditating,
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Could be immovable
In her moving presence.
As for me, I hardly meditate at all. (CP, p.216)
Niranjan Mohanty offers the following conclusive remarks about Nissim
Ezekiel’s relationship with God by quoting the poet himself: “Ezekiel
was an unbeliever and then gradually he changed his stance. But his
relationship with God was neither wholly devotional nor mysterious or
mystical. It was human and it depended on his moods. Rather, one can
say that he was a moody believer in god. In his conversation with Ranvir
Rangra, Ezekiel admits: “I do not feel that I have unbroken relationship
with god, though it includes a variety of moods. I am not in any sense an
orthodox believer and I was positively an unbeliever from the age of 18
or 19 or 42 or so. What is unbroken in my relationship to the universe,
the cosmos rather that the god is a sense of mystery and that is not saying
much, I admit, though orthodox unbelievers tend to deny any mystery in
existence.” (Mohanty, Niranjan. ‘Poetics of Prayer: A Study in the Poetry
of A.K.Ramanujan and Nissim Ezekiel’, Indian English Literature
Volume IV. ed. Basavaraj Naikar. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and
Distributors, 2003. p. 32)
There is a constant quest to find the balance between reason and emotion.
The poem ‘In Emptiness’ goes on to state his resolve ‘to find another
way’ between ‘reason and emotion’:
I would rather suffer when I must.
………………………………
Let reason and emotion fare
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As man and wife; let them quarrel,
Make love or live occasionally
Apart, and then be reconciled,
But let them not, indifferently,
Empty the house of words and music,
Partners of marriage in decay.
Broken by excesses or by
Lack of them, let me always feel
The presence of the golden mean… (CP, p.12)
To Bruce King, Ezekiel is like Auden’s wanderer: “Ezekiel is like
Auden’s wanderer who has crossed the seas to a strange land, seen and
tasted temptation and now is faced by the problem of returning home
when his mind has been ‘corrupted by the things imagined/through the
winter nights, alone’.” (King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets. New Delhi:
OUP, 2005, p. 34)
Keeping in the mind the human urge in the poetry of Nissim Ezekiel, it is
interesting to read his prayer poems and psalms. The prayer-motif in
Ezekiel not only evidences a spiritual growth but also harps on his
identity. Thus, like home or place or rituals, prayer-motif is indicative of
the poet or writer’s identity. It acts as a catalyst to an identity intensifier.
Before going into it in depth, let it be remembered that here is a persona
who is almost a non-believer. That’s why he hesitates by saying ‘if I
could pray’ in the poem ‘Prayer’:
If I could pray, the gist of my
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Demanding would be simply this:
Quietitude. The ordered mind. (CP, p.54)
The prayers of a non-believer can never have a dedication and
supplication of religious poets of the Bhakti Era of Indian literature or the
metaphysics of the English poets like Donne or Spencer. Again the tone
becomes important than the words. In the words of John Thieme, the poet
in ‘Latter-Day Psalms’ appears unfinished man: “The persona of this
poem (‘Latter-Day Psalms’)remains as much an unfinished man as that of
any of the earlier poems, a postmodern figure fumbling his way towards
a provisional sense of identity, who feels obligated to remake his
intertexts in his own image. (Thieme, John. ‘Introduction’, Collected
Poems of Nissim Ezekiel. Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. xxxviii)
Interestingly and typical of Nissim Ezekiel’s temperament, he wrote
‘Latter-Day Psalms’ as a post modern response to real Psalms. Bruce
King offers the much discussed history behind the origination of Ezekiel
Psalms: “The origin of the ‘latter-day Psalms’ has often been told.
Ezekiel was in Rotterdam during June 1978 to do a poetry reading and at
his hotel found only the Gideon Bible to read. Never having ‘accepted’
the psalms, he began to write his own reply first writing nine psalms
loosely in an older style, then a tenth in modern English as a
commentary. The way in which Ezekiel’s psalms answer and invert those
in the Old Testament can be seen by reading them alongside each other.
Here, for example, is the first verse of psalm 1 in the King James
Version:
Blessed is the man that walketh
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Not in the counsel of the ungodly,
Nor standeth in the way of sinners,
Nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
Ezekiel’s reply:
Blessed is the man that walketh
Not in the counsel of the conventional,
And is at home with
Sin as with a wife. He shall
Listen patiently to the scornful,
And understand the sources of their scorn.
Ezekiel’s imitation, or parody, affirm the world of experience, the loss of
innocence; the enjoyment of sin as a means towards tolerance,
understanding, reasons, salvation. The law is replaced by the spirit,
instead of fear of temptation there is involvement in the world. Compare
the second verse of the psalm:
But his delight is the law of the
LORD; and in his law doth he meditate
Day and night.
With Ezekiel’s second verse:
He does not meditate day and
Night on anything; his delight
Is in action.
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(King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets. New Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 57-58) In
the words of Shakuntala Bharvani, “Biblical wisdom is juxtaposed along
–side modern mans changed beliefs in a changing world. Ezekiel is
saying that since the world has changed, so must our values and our
norms. Inevitably we encounter sin and crime all the way. Things cannot
remain the same. With the changing times, religious beliefs have to be re
– thought and revised. There has to be a religion which is compatible
with modern mans ethos and nature.” (Bharvani, Shakuntala. Nissim
Ezekiel. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, p. 77-8) Offering a detailed study
of the poet’s prayer motif, Niranjan Mohanty opines that here is a
persona who is ready to shed his ego through his prayers: “Ezekiel’s
prayers…being the instruments of self therapy and refinement…the
prayers, wishes or half-wishes expressed by the poet in his Latter-Day
Psalms and the kind of faith that evolves alludes to the kind of
transformation that has gone into the poet. His egoism, selfishness are all
shed.” (Mohanty, Niranjan. ‘Poetics of Prayer: A Study in the Poetry of
A.K.Ramanujan and Nissim Ezekiel’, Indian English Literature Volume
IV. ed. Basavaraj Naikar. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and
Distributors, 2003. p. 34). And again, “He (Ezekiel) sheds his ego, and
adheres to humility: “I’m not a man of ample means”. This movement
from ego to its sublimination, from pride to humility marks the end of
cynicism and the beginning of pilgrim’s faith in the lord. His knowledge
of and faith in god get intensified when he comes to realize the fact that
both good and evil co-exist, and that through such harmonized co-
existence life obtains its meaning. The poet learns the distinction between
good and evil, light and darkness, God and Man, the unchanging and the
mutable.” (Mohanty, Niranjan. ‘Poetics of Prayer: A Study in the Poetry
of A.K.Ramanujan and Nissim Ezekiel’, Indian English Literature
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Volume IV. Ed. Basavaraj Naikar. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and
Distributors, 2003. p. 33)
A. Narayan also sees the identity clashes in the prayer poetry of Ezekiel.
He writes that, “Ezekiel’s best poems show his struggle to come to terms
with himself and India. In the poster poems Ezekiel makes use of both
Judaic-Christian and Hindu traditions to examine his relationship with
God. The irony is directed inward.” (As quoted by Chindhade, Shirish.
Five Indian English Poets. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and
Distributors, 2001, p. 49)
Bruce King finds out an identity of a modern secular in the 21st Century
in the persona of Ezekiel’s poetry in the prayer poems: “Ezekiel is similar
to many poets of our secular age in attempting to replace the lost faiths of
the past by new myths of his own.” (King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets,
Second Edition. New Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 44). And further he says,
“Like many modern writers he has had to discover his own system of
belief. But unlike such writers as Eliot, Yeats, or Robert graves there is
little nostalgia for older, pre-enlightenment systems of thought,
traditions, mythology, mysticisms, or primitivisms.” (King, Bruce. Three
Indian Poets. New Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 44)
According to Shakuntala Bharvani, ‘Ezekiel’s imitation and inversion of
the psalms so as to overturn and deflate their meaning affirms his
humanity and his tolerance. Where the psalmist sings a song of praise to
his lord, “Thou has broken the teeth of the ungodly”, the poet questions,
“How can I breathe freely if thou breakest the teeth of the ungodly?” in
these psalms the poet recognizes the fact that in a new age, a new way of
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life must be carved out. Also the psalms demonstrate Ezekiel’s efforts to
come to terms with his own Jewish heritage’. (Bharvani, Shakuntala.
Nissim Ezekiel. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, p. 81)
A set of poems titled as ‘Poster Poems’ reveal the ironic and indirect way
of the poet towards the realities of the world. In a kind of direct
statement, the poet declares that ‘Life is not as simple as morality. (CP,
p.209) The persona doesn’t have a moralistic desire to be shooting star
which just burns. His human craving is to be a shooting star which is
noticed and taken into account by others:
Suppose I were a shooting star,
I would want to be seen.
That would be my only meaning.
What is there, after all,
In shooting across the sky
and being burnt up?
But being seen!
That would be another thing. (CP, p.210)
And yet the poet is dissatisfied with the quick and readymade recipes of
success and peace offered by the worldly men:
Yoga, Zen, Kabbala,
St John of the Cross, Pelmanism,
Plotinus, Sell Your Way to Success,
Kierkegaard, Pascal,
Think and Grow Rich,
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The Four Quartets.
And How to Change Yourself in Ten Days.
(CP, p.211)
Another set of kind of prayer poems are ‘Hymns in Darkness’. The
identity of the persona of the poet is again situation created in the sense
that when he was writing these set of poems, he was recovering from the
shock of the death of his parents. In the words of Bruce King: “The
sixteen ‘Hymns in Darkness’ were written during a period after Ezekiel’s
mother and father died, and when living in a room alone, he would turn
out the lights and compose poetry in his head related to the Vedic hymns
he was reading in English translation.” (King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets.
New Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 55)
The use of word ‘darkness’ in the title with ‘Hymns’ is interesting and
offers us something to learn about the mentality of the persona. In one of
the poems the poet accepts that ‘All his truths are outside him, and mock
his activity’ (CP, p.217). Here also the poet identifies himself with the
city of Bombay by saying that ‘the noise of the city is matched by the
noise in his spirit’ (CP, p.217). The persona ‘lives in the world of desires
and devices (CP, p.217). The poet declares that throughout his existence
‘self-esteem stunts his growth. He has not learnt how to be nobody (CP,
p.217). But again disillusioned by the powers of self esteem and declares:
It’s all of little use.
He’s still a puny self
Hoping to manipulate the universe and all
Its manifest powers for his own advancement,
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Advantages. (CP, p.217)
The tragedy lies in the fact that the persona of ‘Hymns in Darkness’ has
not been able to find the ‘fixed star of his seeking’ and ‘it multiples like a
candle in the eyes of a drunkard (CP, p.218). And in a typical Ezekiel
style, the persona accepts that ‘he looks at the nakedness of truth in the
spirit of a Peeping Tom (CP, p.218). Throughout he has played many
roles:
He has played at being disciple
He has played at being guru. (CP, p.218)
In a full of confession mood, the poet accepts that ‘to his wife an
impossible husband, to his children less than loving’ (CP, p.219). And
yet there is recognition to some mystical powers:
Whose the voice of truth
That spoke through the imperfect words?
(CP, p.219)
Although ‘he has lost faith in himself’ he had ‘found faith at last’ (CP,
p.219) The persona accepts that many of his relationships are result of his
being ‘incapable of quarreling with them’ and thus he ‘maintains the old
Stale unredeemable relationships’ (CP, p.220). He was ‘all attentive’ to
others but was ‘indifferent’ to his own needs. There can be many
references and readings of the word ‘darkness’ in the title. Bruce King
offers three equally interesting reading: “The darkness in the title
obviously has a literal sense as referring to the dark room in which the
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poems are written; but is also has several other significances. The first is
the darkness of the fallen spirit in contrast to those who lived by spiritual
illumination. These are also poems of someone who feels he is living in
the noise, mist, confusion of modern life rather than by any light. There
is, however, a third or contrasting meaning of darkness: it can be the
negative way, a mystic way, or state of salvation. The divine can be
unknowable darkness as well as the light. With Ezekiel’s poems, because
of the use of personae and distance, affirmations of the self can be ironic;
confessions of guilt can be affirmations.” (King, Bruce. Three Indian
Poets. New Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 55-6)
It is interesting that The Hymns conclude with an affirmation of life as in
itself of value; there is no ‘belief’ that can save. The conclusion does not
lead to any affirmation of ideals but the conclusion to life affirmation as
it is. Rather, reality itself, regardless of how the world was made, is the
only life we have and in the particularities of experience are its miracles;
You are master
Neither of death nor of life.
Belief will not save you,
Nor unbelief.
All you have
Is the sense of reality,
Unfathomable
As it yields its secrets
Slowly
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One
By
One. (CP, p.225)
In ‘Prayer 2’, Ezekiel’s aesthetic attitude gets revealed at once for he
prays for making his life clean and meaningful by living with men and
women and living for them:
Let me dream the dream of Man.
…………………….
Let me not be isolated uninvolved in
Man’s defeat, but know my love reciprocated
Dancing in the neutral street. (CP, p.55-56)
Niranjan Mohanty suggests the direct voice of the poet as a human search
for the meaning of life: “The praying voice is direct, bereft of any
context. This directness, this explicitness even creates an impression of
egotism. Whatever is the motif in these prayers, at least, the poet’s
attitude towards the self and the world is known. One also discovers
changes in the slowly evolving, progressing prayer motifs- the changes
which define a degree of refinement in the poet’s attitude towards life.”
(Mohanty, Niranjan. ‘Poetics of Prayer: A Study in the Poetry of
A.K.Ramanujan and Nissim Ezekiel’, Indian English Literature Volume
IV. Ed. Basavaraj Naikar. New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers and
Distributors, 2003. p. 32)
With the help of a declared acceptance by the poet in one of the articles,
Dr. Shaila Mahan terms Ezekiel as a unique secularly religious person by
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saying that there is a ‘a constant conflict between an individuals urge for
spiritual growth and the restraints of the institutionalized religion, his
quest for deeper fulfillments and the iron cast framework of organized
opinion. The fusion of the secular and the religious is a notable feature of
Ezekiel’s verse.’ She writes elaborately about this aspect in the poetry of
Ezekiel: “Ezekiel cannot be labeled a religious poet from the orthodox
point of view. Nonetheless he has always been a religious poet, even
when he was an agnostic or skeptic. He has never been a genuine
materialist. There has always been the assumption that there are values,
good in contrast to evil, and that it is the good that should be ones guide.
His outlook has always been that of liberal humanism, with its belief in
such universals as the individual, justice, equality, freedom, rationality
and skepticism. Ezekiel’s religious philosophical poetry arises out of a
tension within his own personality. It emerges from a conflict between
opposites, an involvement with life and a desire for detachment from it; a
sensuous perception of the physical world and a spiritual abstraction
beyond that world. His own statement recognizes the presence of such
schism in molding his poetry: “I am not a religious or even a moral
person in any conventional sense. Yet, I’ve always felt myself to be
religious and moral in some sense. The gap between these two statements
is the existential sphere of my poetry”. (Mahan, Shaila. The Poetry of
Nissim Ezekiel. Jaipur: Classic Publications, 2001, p. 172-3) ‘Minority
Poem’ states a philosophical truth. Man is unable to overcome his
pettiness and selfishness. He does not possess the will “to pass through
the eye of a needle to self-forgetfulness” as Mother Teresa was able to
do. It is for her selflessness that “everyone understands Mother Teresa”.
Man only concentrates on petty unimportant issues “while the city
burns”.
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Anisur Rahman has rightly observed that, “Without any conscious
striving for a philosophical dimension or a religious pattern, Nissim
Ezekiel exhibits a deeper religio – philosophical awareness of the world
and the tortured self. He is neither a saint negating the sensual pleasure
nor a yogi wandering in the thick jungle to attain light, but a man of
parts, a being of the world participating and belonging. He takes a unique
stance of a modern quester: liberal in outlook yet strong in commitment.”
(As quoted by Mahan, Shaila. The Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel. Jaipur:
Classic Publications, 2001, p. 173)
Whenever a poet takes up poetry as a tool to search his identity and self,
the metaphor of journey is bound to play a crucial role. Since time
immemorial journey or pilgrimage has been described by the authors
across cultures and languages as a kind of tool to symbolize the search of
a persona. Ezekiel also follows this pattern in some of his poetry. The
very first poem of the Collected Poems– ‘A Time to Change’ begins with
the poet’s commitment to the theme of pilgrimage. In this poem Ezekiel
shows the man who accepts the challenge of active life and leaves his
home with a firm resolution to proceed on a voyage of quest. Shakuntala
Bharvani also emphasizes the same view by referring to the Epigraph
quoted by Ezekiel in the book: “The first poem is titled ‘A Time to
Change’. It is dedicated to his mother and the collection takes its title
from this poem. Often considered autobiographical, the predominant
metaphor in this collection is the journey, voyage or venture or the
departure from home. The epigraph from the book of revelation
reinforces the leit motif of a pilgrimage being undertaken with intense
determination and the struggle of the protagonist to avoid a lukewarm
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and half – hearted attitude. (Bharvani, Shakuntala. Nissim Ezekiel. New
Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, p. 3)
Such a man is impelled by a strong urge of his will and is determined to
face the difficulties and problems involved in the journey. He voluntarily
breaks himself away from the original pattern of life and his motive is to
explore the ways of new life. In the words of Shaila Mahan, “The title of
the poem itself suggests the fact that the poet is dissatisfied with the
existing life and he wishes to change its pattern. The poem reveals the
poets frustration and disillusionment and his quest for identity. It also
points to his faith that this identity is to be sought in life and not outside
it.” (Mahan, Shaila. The Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel. Jaipur: Classic
Publications, 2001, p. 126). The two distinct poems in this sense are
‘Enterprise’ and ‘A Morning Walk’. Here it is a personal quest for
identity, commitment and harmony in life. The image of journey is a
dominant feature in his poetry. It is employed by Ezekiel as a symbolic
pattern that synthesizes idea and poetic expression in his works. With the
help of thoughts expressed by G. Damodar, Shaila Mahan opines the
same view: “The central and persistent metaphor of Ezekiel’s writings is
that of departure, a journey or a venture. Ezekiel may be described as a
pilgrim with a sense of commitment and his poetry as a metaphoric
journey into the heart of existence. G. Damodar characterizes Ezekiel as
“a poet seeking a balance between an almost existential involvement with
life and an intellectual quest”. Ezekiel is concerned with the man engaged
in a progressive journey who is trying to reach out to future destinations.
(Mahan, Shaila. The Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel. Jaipur: Classic
Publications, 2001, p. 125)
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In the poem, ‘Enterprise’ (CP, p.118), the poet takes up the theme of
voyage and expresses a sense of loss and deprivation:
The trip had darkened every face,
Our deeds were neither great nor rare.
Home is where we have to earn our grace. (CP, p.118)
Commenting on the poem’s theme of quest, Dr. Shaila Mahan observes
by quoting from Inder Nath Kher that, ‘Enterprise’ is a representative
example of Ezekiel’s treatment of the theme of quest. It delineates a
journey in an alien land in search of wisdom. A collective venture
apparently having an ambitious goal passes through several phases and
ends on a skeptic note. Inder Nath Kher’s comment can be quoted here to
elaborate the point...in so far as home is a metaphor for the self;
Redemption has to be won also through the private landscape of ones
psyche or mind. Both these realms, the outer and the inner, are essential
to human growth and fulfillment. Without commitment to life in the
World and without journey into the abyss of ones being, the metaphoric
pilgrimage of Ezekiel’s aesthetic Vision remains incomplete, though an
everlasting possibility”. (Mahan, Shaila. The Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel.
Jaipur: Classic Publications, 2001, p. 127)
Reading the poem at several levels, Shakuntala Bharvani suggests that,
‘by the time the journey ended they hardly knew why they were there,
what they were doing or the meaning of their actions. The poem is
allegorical and can be read at several levels. It can be seen as symbolic of
the human condition: man strives and struggles through his journey of
life to achieve a goal. When he has achieved what he desires, he loses
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interest. Or, one may take the journey metaphor further. During the
course of this journey more may be lost rather than gained. It is to the
‘home’, to the ‘reality’ that finally one must return and ‘gather grace’. In
whichever way we choose to read it, this poem brings us back to the
epigraph and the metaphor of the journey… But essentially, man is for
ever unfinished, and as Yeats puts it very succinctly in this poem,
“Myself I must remake”, this “foul rag and bone shop of the heart”. Thus
Yeats philosophy stands in good stead for Ezekiel; for he takes it as a
starting point to express his own philosophy life has to be lived with all
its flaws and inadequacies. Ezekiel was influenced by Yeats and as a
teacher he always enjoyed teaching the work of this Irish poet.”
(Bharvani, Shakuntala. Nissim Ezekiel. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, p.
40-1)
Another poem having the same theme is “A Morning walk.” (CP, p.128)
The poem can be described as a metaphoric journey into the ‘self’: a
journey made through introspection. The realization that there is a deep
chasm between the historical world and the world of nature forces him to
make the observation:
His past is like a muddy pool
From which he cannot hope for words. (CP, p.128)
Dr. Shaila Mahan makes the observation that: “He fails to perceive the
unity between the two worlds. His journey enables him to see the
disorder of the city (life around him) in a detached way and comprehend
it in the larger perspective of the history of human civilization. Future
more, he aims at seeing a meaning and order in the existing disorder.”
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(Mahan, Shaila. The Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel. Jaipur: Classic
Publications, 2001, p. 128). Shakuntala Bharvani views The Unfinished
Man essentially a volume of poetry where self-analysis is emphasized.
She says, “the metaphor of the journey gives this volume a greater unity
and Ezekiel’s unfinished man, with all his inadequacies and flaws, must
go through the journey of life. Very often the unfinished man is lost,
lonely, unsure of his goal, staring and seeing little as he “can never see
the sky”. At the end of the journey, as in ‘enterprise’, he has forgotten the
purpose and motive of the journey. David McCutchion expresses this
idea of the journey by referring to this collection as an “examen de midi”,
an examination of a life in the mid – course of its journey. McCutchion
also feels that Ezekiel shows an excessive interest in self analysis in these
poems but the collection ends on a positive note with the short last poem
‘Jamini Roy’.” (Bharvani, Shakuntala. Nissim Ezekiel. New Delhi:
Sahitya Akademi, p. 42-3). ‘Jamini Roy’ is an indication that Ezekiel
believes in the possibility of bringing about some sort of order and
assimilation through art in the urban world of moral chaos and ethical
confusion.
Another set of poems titled as ‘Blessings’ are also indicative of the kind
of life the poet has lived through out his life. His blessings are secular,
modern and practical. The tone and the language suggest a persona who
is seeking the release in the secular way. Bruce King offers the following
studied explanation for these poems: “These fourteen poems (each of
four to nine lines; usually constructed by contrasting halves) epitomize
Ezekiel’s mature vision and how he tried to live most of his life. For all
its romanticism it is also existentialist (remember that in those influential
years in London Ezekiel read the existentialists). Each individuals life is
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a self – creation, you are what you make of yourself. The tension in these
poems between the existential self – made and the given or ‘blessed’ is
seen in the two forms or kinds of poems. There are the real ‘blessings’
expressed by the recurring ‘may you’ found in seven of the
poems.”(King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets. New Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 68)
It can be easily anticipated the nature of ‘Blessings’ that can be offered
by a kind of persona Ezekiel has. Sans morality and the weight of
religion, the ‘blessings’ offered by the persona may appear caricature of
‘real’ blessings, but nonetheless they express the mood of the poet:
May you read
Wisdom books
In the spirit of the comics,
And the comics
In the spirit of the wisdom books. (CP, p.280)
There is a worldly advice as well:
Remember the time-
There’s never enough time,
Enjoy the time,
There’s plenty of time. (CP, p.281)
Such a persona wishes to find humility by reaching on the top of the
world rather than being at the bottom:
Straighten yourself up
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To your full height
And find humility.
It’s better there
Than lower down. (CP, p.281)
The tone of suggestions appearing in the ‘Blessing’ poems is that of a
modern guru. The perspective is that happiness is not something that can
be pursued, it can be found out in normal activities:
Whatever you pursue,
Let it not be happiness.
May you find it often
Resounding
In your normal pursuits. (CP, p.280)
One need not be necessarily a creative writer to create his life. The poet
emphasizes on creating one’s life rather than creating a piece of
literature:
May you be
Poet, painter, scholar,
Thinker, musician,
Even if you create nothing that matters
Except your life, which too
Has to be created. (CP, p.283)
The poet’s set of ‘The Egoist’s Prayers’ are a curious way indicating the
‘self’. In a typical Ezekiel style the prayers appear parody of real praying
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mood. But nonetheless, the mood of the poet and the confessional mode
is obvious:
The vices I’ve always had
I still have.
The virtues I’ve never had
I still do not have.
From this human way of life
Who can rescue man
If not this maker?
Do thy duty, Lord. (CP, p.212)
Such a persona is not moved by the traditional Indian ethos of believing
only in the action discarding the fruit of it:
No, Lord,
Not the fruit of action
Is my motive.
But do you really mind
Half a bite of it?
It tastes so sweet,
And I’m so hungry. (CP, p.212)
The persona even declares his inability to carry out the mission of the
Lord on the Earth. He rather appeals to Him to make His ‘purposes to
coincide with his’:
Do not choose me, O Lord,
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To carry out thy purposes.
I’m quite worthy, of course,
But I have my own purposes.
You have plenty of volunteers
To choose from, Lord.
Why pick on me, the selfish one?
O well, if you insist,
I’ll do your will.
Please try to make it coincide with mine. (CP, p.213)
No creative writer has ever escaped from describing the journey of the
self sans depicting his relationship with the other sex. Nissim Ezekiel is
no exception. The poet persona seeks comfort and a kind of identity in
his relationship with women. But he is constantly disillusioned in such
relationship. Shaila Mahan highlights this aspect of Ezekiel’s poetry by
saying that in his poetry woman is viewed in many roles: “Ezekiel
positively and unequivocally indicates in his poetry- mans eternal
passionate interest in woman. In the poems written by him woman is
viewed in the usual roles of beloved, wife, mother, whore, sex object and
a seductress. The capacity of woman in arousing mans desire and
focusing all his sensuous reactions on certain areas of the woman’s body
is highlighted in many of his poems. Woman like the city both fascinates
and repels him.” (Mahan, Shaila. The Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel. Jaipur:
Classic Publications, 2001, p. 74-5)
So the notion that in love happiness comes is opposed by the poet in
‘Report’:
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And those who love are not,
As people think, happy
Because they love, but nearly
Sad because the sea
Of passion is nothing precisely. (CP, p.84)
‘On Bellasis Road’ is a fine example, expressing Ezekiel’s simultaneous
conflicting feeling for the woman. He finds her both captivating and
unattractive and says:
I cannot even say I care or do not care,
Perhaps it is a kind of despair. (CP, p.189)
At the same time he is aware that the concept of love has really taken
away the real charm of love. We are so linguistically driven that in ‘For
Her’ he makes a categorical statement: ‘We can not love without the idea
of love’ (CP, p.88). Although amidst being illusioned and disillusioned in
the relationship with women, the poet persona can not entirely avoid the
other sex:
Certain vases and women, however expensive,
Fill the animal heart with wonder and warmth,
(CP, p.94)
For Ezekiel, the relationship with women is never a simple one. In poem,
‘Tonight’ he describes contrasting feelings by saying ‘tonight I hear my
woman breathing/who loves me till my world is waste’ (CP, p.94). And
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surely ‘a man is damned in that domestic game.’ (CP, p.125) Writing
powerfully in ‘Poem of the Separation’ of the break up of a love affair
with a foreign woman he says to her:
In the squalid, crude
City of my birth and rebirth,
You were a new way
Of laughing at the truth.
I want you back
With the rough happiness you lightly wear,
Supported by your shoulders,
Breasts and thighs.
But you ask to break it up.
Your latest letter says:
‘I am enclosing
Ramanujan’s translation
Of a Kannada religious poem:
“The Lord is playing
With streamers of fire.”
I want to play with fire.
Let me get burnt. (CP, p.196)
His poetry depicting and narrating the man-woman relationship is
interesting document telling about his views and experiences about the
female. For Shakuntala Bharvani, “Ezekiel was not a Victorian prude. All
kinds of women make appearances in his poems (and his plays): there is
the modern sophisticated one who flaunts her wit and her body; the
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conservative, shy woman who waits for the man to take the initiative; the
streetwalker who does it for the money; the girl who wants to
experiment...et al.” (Bharvani, Shakuntala. Nissim Ezekiel. New Delhi:
Sahitya Akademi, p. 3)
One of the glaring aspects of Nissim Ezekiel’s treatment of women in his
poetry is that they are almost referred as third persons. This tendency
suggests that for the persona, the female are merely as something viewed
from male perspectives. Dr. Shaila Mahan also agrees with the notion
that, “The peculiarity of Ezekiel’s treatment of woman is that in his
poems woman are never referred to in the first person. In majority of his
poems they are referred to in the first person. Since in none of his poems
has the woman been given the role of a persona the relationship between
man and woman is explored from the male point of view. Also very
rarely are woman addressed by personal names. They exist as species and
type rather than as individuals. In fact in most of the cases we are given
only one side of the picture. This presentation from the male view point
makes the portrayal lopsided. Moreover she is hardly ever allowed to
speak. It will not be wrong if we say that in Ezekiel’s poems woman
exists not only without mostly without voice too. And in the few poems
where they speak the speech portrays a negative impression:
And then she said: I love you, just like this
As I had seen the yellow blondes declare
Upon the screen me now because i did not kiss.
(CP, p.11)
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(Mahan, Shaila. The Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel. Jaipur: Classic
Publications, 2001, p. 84-5). We can not always say that the persona is
always subjective. At times he assumes the objective stance as well. In
the words of Narendra Lall: “His persona is the protagonist in most of the
poems, but there are some in which the persona is an
observer/commentator. Yet in his relationship with woman, he sees those
filling biological and societal roles, those of mother, wife, mistress,
seductress, whore, and sex object.” (Lall, Emmanuel Narendra. The
Poetry of Encounter, New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Private Limited,
1983, p. 92)
Not only that, the poetry narrating such relationship is abundant in
volume and the tone is often of confession. Thus we can have a hint of
the development of the ‘self’ in relationship with women. It is a fact that
however much Ezekiel’s persona wants to change his perspective on
woman, his image of woman as sex object remains with him. Narendra
Lall finds the Yeatsian tone in such poetry since Ezekiel too was
influenced by the poetry of Yeats so much so that the title of his one
volume of poetry The Unfinished Man is borrowed from Yeats poetry. He
writes that, “The title of Ezekiel’s fourth book of poems comes from the
second section of Yeats’ ‘A Dialogue of Self and Soul’ (the winding stair
and other poems [1933], and the first stanza of this section is used as
epigraph for The Unfinished Man. Ezekiel’s use of Yeats’ poem has
significance because Yeats too was much concerned with the relationship
between man and woman; his poem about Maud Gonne in “no second
troy” (the green helmet and other poems [1910]) supports my
observation, as does the “Self’s” comment in the third stanza of the
second section of “A Dialogue of Self and Soul” which says that a living
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man should accept the experience of the “unfinished man” within him
even if it means the repetitions of follies such as “the folly that man
does/or must suffer, if he woos/a proud woman not kindred of his soul.”
As the unfinished man progresses, he learns through experience the
complexity of the man – woman relationship, and in this learning process
he images “woman” in the roles categorized earlier.” (Lall, Emmanuel
Narendra. The Poetry of Encounter, New Delhi: Sterling Publishers
Private Limited, 1983, p. 75)
The important document in depicting the man-woman relationship is a
series of nine lyrics grouped under “Passion Poems.” Here the poet-
persona continues to probe the relationship between man and woman. In
writing about this theme he adopts the subjective as well as the objective
point of view, and discusses the secular and religious aspects of love
within this man-woman relationship. Ezekiel in a letter to his sister Asha
Bhende from London on 9th May, 1950 emphasized the importance of
true happiness in marriage when the latter decided to marry. He wrote:
“Remember always that the relationship is more important than you or
your future husband. It is wisest to treat it as a third entity which has to
be reared slowly and carefully, like a tender plant. Giving all to the
marriage you will find that marriage in its turn will give you all it has to
offer. And what any relationship offers to us when treated in this way is
nothing less than a plentitude of happiness.” (Bhende, Asha.
‘Remembering Nissim’, Nissim Ezekiel Remembered. ed. Havovi
Anklesaria. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 2008, p. 6). Bruce King
observes that the poems narrating the man-woman relationship is the
protagonist’s attempt to observe him in ‘the bad faith’: “Part of the
achievement of the volume results from the creation of a persona of
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someone watching himself as if he were a case study in bad faith, as if all
the philosophizing of the early poems were self-deception. He is aware
that the image of a woman to love eternally and faithfully was such an
idea.” (King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets. New Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 40)
An important aspect of the persona’s relationship with women is that of
love-hate. Like the characters of D.H.Lawrence, the poet-persona is
constantly illusion and disillusioned by his relationships with the women.
‘Progress’ is an important poem in this regard since it shows the
conclusive wisdom of the poet-persona that the truth can not only be
obtained through the sexual relationship with the women:
The former suffering
Self declined to use
Of women who were
Willing but unlovable:
Love was high minded, stable.
Now he wears a thicker
Skin, upgraded from
The goddesses of virtue
To mocking, sexual eyes
Whose hunger makes him wise. (CP, p.141)
Commenting on the poem, Bruce King opines the same: ‘Progress’
contrasts a high minded former self, which would not bed willing women
he did not love, with a present tougher self ‘whose hunger makes him
wise’. Ezekiel had traveled a long way since the romantic idealism of ‘a
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time to change’.” (King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets. New Delhi: OUP,
2005, p. 47)
Love, sex, and the attraction of women seem Ezekiel’s main way to hold
off despair and find interest in life. So one cannot regard Ezekiel as male
chauvinist. Shakuntala Bharvani clarifies it by referring to the poem ‘At
the Hotel’ (CP, 112): ‘It cannot be concluded that Ezekiel was a male
chauvinist who thought of woman as sex objects, carving to caress and be
caressed. The more plausible explanation is that he enjoyed, like most
men, indulging in the voyeuristic, and this finds expressions in his poetry.
Several of his poems deal with hips, breasts, legs and thrusts:
At the hotel
Our motives were concealed but clear,
Not coffee but the Cuban dancer rooks us there,
The naked Cuban dancer.
On the dot she came and shook her breasts....
Our motives were concealed but clear. (CP, p.112)
(Bharvani, Shakuntala. Nissim Ezekiel. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, p.
18)
In one of his love poems, ‘The Couple’, the two lie to gain sexual
conquests but only in making love does ‘false love’ become ‘infused with
truest love’:
You’re a wonderful woman, he said,
……………………………………..
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He knew he was lying,
But then how else
Could he hope to win her?
The flattery and the bold advances
Were necessary after all,
The minimum politics of survival and success.
And how charmingly she took it all!
What could a man do?
Her false love become infused
With truest love only in making love.
To love her was impossible,
To abandon her unthinkable. (CP, p.183-4)
And amidst all the description of the persona’s relationship with the
women, there is a constant search for self even with color the of religion
in it. Bruce King refers to Ezekiel’s ‘Tribute to the Upanishads’ in this
regard: “Along with whatever decisions Ezekiel made, or did not make
(and a love affair seems to be at the centre), there is an increasing
attraction to the religious, a need for some way to get beyond the self
without giving up the self to traditional religious restrictions and beliefs.
‘Tribute to the Upanishads’ begins:
To feel that one is somebody
Is to drive oneself
In a kind of hearse…
But continues:
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For the present, this is enough,
That I am free
To be the self in me
…the eye of the eye
That is trying to see. (CP, p.205)
(King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets. New Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 53)
Comparing Ezekiel’s relationship poetry with Kamala Das, King remarks
that his poetry is more ‘quiet’: “Where as most of what is termed
confessional poetry is open and explicit, Ezekiel’s poetry manages to be
open and guarded, personal and yet part of a persona. We are aware of
moods, crises, themes, problems, changes, but the facts of life are seldom
there. Whereas part of the attraction of a Kamala Das poem is in her up-
front, grand self-dramatizing of her emotions and situations, Ezekiel is
more quiet, introverted, protected.” (King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets.
New Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 54)
It seems that for Ezekiel physical is more near than abstract. His intense
relationship with the women was more based on the first hand physical
experience than on the abstract concept of love and admiration. In ‘Torso
of a Woman’, which begins Poems 1983-1988 in the Collected Poems,
the poet emphasizes on the ‘form’:
Praise the form,
Praise the modeling,
Praise the dynamic movement
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And the complex synthesis
Of muscular tensions:
The woman plainly needs
Her common arms and legs. (CP, p.265)
According to Bruce King, the tone of the poem is similar to that of
‘Nudes 1978’: “…in the way in which abstract reasoning is used to argue
for the superiority of the physical and therefore, by implication, actual
experience over the abstract beauty if art. A woman is the perfect
example of such a claim for preferring reality to a symbolic image in art.
Art is not pure from abstracted from reality, not pure images; it needs the
‘common’, the normal, the human.” (King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets.
New Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 60-61)
There is a notion that Ezekiel has declined as a poet in his later poetry.
But the argument doesn’t seem valid since now the poet is more in the
mood of writing for himself rather than wishing for the accolades which
the poet of Time for Change might have anticipated. Bruce King affirms
this view since there is a greater inclination on finding one’s truer self in
the later poetry: “The notion that Ezekiel has declined as a poet may be
incorrect but was encouraged by a tendency towards less selectivity in
the choice of what he later published. The younger Ezekiel aimed to set
standards in Indian English poetry comparable to the best elsewhere; later
Ezekiel seemed more concerned with writing out of some inner need than
with creating a name or standards. ’Subconscious’, one of the late
Collected Poems (poems 1983-1988), expresses fear of being deserted by
the Muse in what might be felt to be a situation similar to that between a
man and a woman he has loved and now takes for granted…While
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Ezekiel began with a notion of living the life of a poet, his years in
London modified such romanticism with more practical views; regardless
of the fullness of his life, what has made him a poet is his dedication to,
even obsession with, poetry.” (King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets. New
Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 64)
It becomes clear through the reading of the poetry of Ezekiel that there
can not be attainment of divine. For him the normal is divine, or for that
matter it is a duty of a poet to make normal divine. There is suggestion
not to seek for happiness in something extraordinary, since happiness, if
at all it can be sought; it is only in the ordinary things of life. This is
perhaps the central theme which runs through out the poetry of Ezekiel.
Bruce King sums up in the following words: “Seeing the divine in the
ordinary and vulgar, and by investing common experience with the
religious, Ezekiel has become almost a Blakean romantic, a mystic of the
ordinary. Every drop of water is to be cared for, all creation is valuable. It
is a blessing to be ‘drunk’ with a divinely ordered vocation, but do not
search for happiness, for if you are blessed, it will come from the fullness
of your ‘normal’ life.” (King, Bruce. Three Indian Poets. New Delhi:
OUP, 2005, p. 67) And again he says that, “Part of Ezekiel’s new
achievement is the discovery that he can make poetry from the naked self
behind the mask. But the naked face of crisis, of emotional turmoil, of
frustrated desires, of disillusionment and longing, of despair screaming to
escape from its cage, is itself still another persona, another face.” (King,
Bruce. Three Indian Poets. New Delhi: OUP, 2005, p. 41)
It can be summarized that the poet-persona is crazy about his madness.
He loves to be mad among the crowd of so called sensible people. In
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‘Song to be Shouted Out, from Songs for Nandu Bhende’ there is a
declaration that:
The further I move
Away from madness
Towards stability
And a measure of sense,
The closer I seem
To the verge of madness. (CP, p.242)
In his tryst with the religion and morality of the world, the poet
ultimately feels that it is difficult to keep the ‘testimony’ of the God. In
‘Latter-Day Psalms’ he reveals:
It is the story-teller who
Keeps saying that we did not
Keep God’s testimony. He never
Learns that it cannot
Be kept. (CP, p.257)
Somehow the poet feels that ‘nothing I say or do is holy but I no longer
feel it needn’t be (CP, p.271). And so the ultimate reconciliation that is
offered in ‘A Different Way’:
Not exactly penitent-
The claim would be pretence-
But tired of living
In the old dimensions,
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I have begun to imagine
A different way
In which things become holy
As they remain the same. (CP, p.272)
And so ‘At 62’ he wants to learn the ways
To heal
Myself and others,
Before I hear
My last song. (CP, p.274)
So when he imagines his post-death obituaries, the anticipation is that of
being remembered as ‘a poet whose theme was human failure (CP,
p.275) Befitting to the whole life of tumult and confusion, the poet
declares in ‘Ten Poems in the Greek Anthology Mode’:
It’s best to be born,
And being born,
To write verses saying
It’s best not to be born. (CP, p.276)
The poet is still ever ready to start again and again to seek the meaning of
his life in secular language, as stated way back in his first volume of
poetry:
The aspiration
Found Again
174
I start again
With secret faults concealed no more .
(CP, p.5)
Vasant A. Shahane feels that there is a very close connection between
Ezekiel’s life and his poetical work. He further writes: “He is primarily a
poet seeking, sometimes in vain, other times successfully, a balance
between an almost existential involvement with life and an intellectual
quest for commitment”. (As quoted by Mahan, Shaila. The Poetry of
Nissim Ezekiel. Jaipur: Classic Publications, 2001, p. 42). Concluding the
discussion on the poetry of Ezekiel, Shakuntala Bharvani offers that,
‘Ezekiel’s poetry is introspective, pensive and reflective. Even in the
early poems, there is the inward turning, the spirit of contemplation. He
travels within in order to discover his roots. Just as in the poem ‘Jamini
Roy’ this rural artist of Bengal turned inwards to discover his true art and
find his real vocation, so also with Ezekiel, it is in an inward turning that
he finds sustenance.’ (Bharvani, Shakuntala. Nissim Ezekiel. New Delhi:
Sahitya Akademi, p. 121). Adil Jussawalla paid a true tribute to the
temperament of Ezekiel when he wrote a poem titled ‘Have I heard
Right, I Wonder’ in which he mentioned what ‘mattered’ for Ezekiel:
It wasn’t like that.
What I recall is a branch
Stopped by glass;
Nissim abruptly saying,
“It’s a plant,”
When I asked him its name,
And then, more abruptly,
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“That’s all that matters”.
(Jussawalla, Adil. ‘Have I heard Right, I Wonder’, Nissim Ezekiel
Remembered. ed. Havovi Anklesaria. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi,
2008, p. xxvi)
As Keki Daruwalla writes, “Ezekiel has made his commitment. He is not
going to be part of the mob or worship ‘snake and cow’. His commitment
is to poetry. Poetry is the instrument through which he wishes to plough
his furrow in life.” (Daruwalla, Keki. ‘Nissim Ezekiel: Perched on
Hyphens, between Poetry and Prayer, Soul and Flesh’, Nissim Ezekiel
Remembered. ed. Havovi Anklesaria. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi,
2008, p. 392). One might also agree, as rightly put by Makarand
Paranjape, that “Nissim’s view of life lacks the sense of grand narratives
or oracular pronouncements. It is in the everyday, humdrum, even sordid
urban landscape of the postcolonial metropolis that he seeks to realize the
higher truths of life. Even his spirituality is different. It lacks the great
affirmations of Tagore or Sri Aurobindo but is instead marked by a
humility and modesty characterized by a reduced set of circumstances
and a circumscribed quest. No longer is the vision one of saving
humanity or saving a nation, but simply of surviving, following a
vocation, living authentically.” (Paranjape, Makarand. ‘A Poetry of
Proportions: Nissim Ezekiel’s Quest for the Exact Name’, Nissim Ezekiel
Remembered. ed. Havovi Anklesaria. New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi,
2008, p. 433)