A. K. Ramanujan was
one of India's greatest modern poets.This is a really beautiful piece of
cynical criticism aimed at poets who force themselves to look only at the
beautiful things in life,and mindlessly ape the same lines quoted by poets,
they tend to ignore the unpleasant facets of life, they never cares to write
about a pregnant woman and a couple of cows.The poet uses irony to express the
callousness of old and new poets who romanticize the floods and ignore the
human aspect of loss and suffering caused by the floods.The poet has come to
the conclusion that both the groups of the poets are indifferent to human
sorrow and suffering. Their poetry dose not reflects the miseries of the human
beings. He has proved this point in the present poem. the poet has compared and
contrasted the attitudes of the old poets and those of the new poets to human
suffering.Both the old and new poets have mentioned these things in their
poems. But the way they have described these things in their poems shows that
they were not much alive to or sympathetic with human suffering.
In this poem, the
poet refers to the river Vaikai which flows through the city of Madurai As a
matter of fact, this city is the center of Tamil culture and learning. It is
also a holy city full of temples including the famous Minakshee temple.We get
two pictures based upon two different kinds of description. In the summer, the
river is almost empty. Only a very thin stream of water flows. So the sand ribs
on the bed of the river are visible. The stones that lie on the bed of the
river also exposed to view. The portion of the river under the bridge has also
been described. We get a vivid picture of the river in the summer season.The
tone of the poem is based on sarcasm and irony.The structure of the poem has
been in paragraphs and single lines. There are four longer verse paragraphs and
a shorter one in the beginning. There are only two single isolated lines. This
kind of structural arrangement contributes to the effect of irony. It also
helps to grasp the main points clearly. Secondly, a word can be said about the
language used in the poem. It is very simple on account of which the thought
sequence of the poem is presented unmistakably and clearly.