A River

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.