DSC material a bird's view - Part 8

About the Author

Shiv K Kumar was born in1921 in Lahore.

In 1956, he received his PhD in English Literature from Cambridge University

From 1959 to 1986, Shiv K. Kumar taught English literature at Osmania University and the University of Hyderabad,

In 1978, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, London

  He received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1987 for his collection of poems Trapfalls in the Sky (1986).

In 2001 he was awarded the Padma Bhushan for his contribution to literature.

He lives in Hyderabad and is married to Madhu: they have two children.

Cambridge University

His works include:

Collections of poetry:

Articulate Silences, 1970

Cobwebs in the Sun, (1974)

Subterfuges, (1976) (includes the oft anthologized poem Indian Women)

Woodpeckers, (1976)

Trapfalls in the Sky, (1986) – Sahitya academy award poem

Woolgathering, (1998)

Thus Spake the Buddha 2002

Losing My Way: Poems (2008)

A play:

The Last Wedding Anniversary in 1975

The Bone’s Prayer (1979)

A River with Three Banks (1998)

Nude Before God

To Nun with Love

Two Mirrors at the Ashram

Infatuation-The Crescent and the Vermilion (2000)

Translated poems

 The Best of Faiz

Faiz Ahmed Faiz: Selected Poems

We do it differently

In this dark continent

Not just once a year

A string of spurious verses

Ensconced in a bouquet

Shaped like Chinese house of dreams

My mother is more demanding

An obeisance at each sunrise,

Like a devotee throwing a handful

Of yellow rice to the birds.

Holding a candelabrum before an idol,

Just once a year

Is desecrating it.

Whenever I see a caterpillar slouching

Towards a pansy’s eye,

Or hear ancestral voices in a wind’s howl

I invoke my deity –

Sometimes twice a day.

Points wise appreciation of the poem:

1.      In Western Countries Mother’s day is celebrated on the second Sunday of May.

2.      Poet draws a contrast between Indian Culture and western Culture.

3.      Children presents gifts and flowers to mother, but that affection and love is not real more or less it would be like a mere ritual, and not permanent like a Chinese pack of Cards.

4.      As we feed birds with yellow rice every day, we pay our respects to our mother every day.

5.      We need to thank and show affection to our mother everyday as we could not hold candelabrum before a deity once in a week.

6.      A caterpillar moving towards the pansy flower and a wind’s noise remind the poet to pay obeisance to his mother.

7.      Here dark continent is not Africa as it is generally assumed but in poet’s mind it is Asia.

Different images vividly describe the poet’s lamentation over the influx of western culture and express his love and reverence towards his mother.