"A River" by A.K. Ramanujan: Multiple Layers of Meaning and is a Commentary on the Indifference

"A River" by A. K. Ramanujan is a tour de force of impressive potency and insightful philosophy and yet a poem characterized by its graceful lucidity and finely honed criticism. Through the poem the poet raises the question of an artist’s commitment to the society. A.K. Ramanujan develops the theme very well, with excellent pacing, through very solid use of imagery. This poem is a pretty melancholic but it's presented well, cohesive, thought provoking piece. The river, which is a symbol of life and fertility, becomes a destructive force. The poets, both old and new, are indifferent to the sufferings and havoc wrought by the river. The emotional sterility matches with the dryness and the river has water enough to be poetic once a year as a reporter witnesses the scene. The river mentioned is the Vaigai, famed in Tamil legends and puranas. A. K. Ramanujan in "A River" presents these ideas in an unsentimental manner.

In "A River", the narrator talks of the river Vaikai flowing through the ancient city of Madurai. Madurai has been sketched by the narrator who is visiting, as ‘A city of temples and poets’. The above lines satirize and debunk the traditional romantic view of the river Vaikai in Madurai, by the ancient poets. He is derisive too, of the new poets who have no wit but to blindly copy their predecessors.

In this poem, the poet has compared and contrasted the mind-set of the old poets and those of the new poets to human misery. Both the poets are apathetic to human sorrow and suffering. Their poetry does not mirror the miseries of the human beings; on the other hand they are concerned with the themes that are far away from the stark reality before them. They write about the beauty of the river in full flood completely ignoring the devastation and human tragedy wreaked by this beastly force.

In this poem, the poet refers to the river Vaikai which flows through the city of Madurai. Madurai, reputed for its rich cultural and spiritual heritage, is a well known city in Tamil Nadu. In the poem "A River" the poet presents two strikingly contrasting pictures of the river: a vivid picture of the river in the summer season and the river in its full flow when the floods arrive with devastating fury.

In the summer, the river is almost barren and arid. Only a very thin stream of water flows revealing the sand ribs on the bed of the river. There is also the picture of the river in the monsoon season, flooded and with its immense destructive power yet startlingly beautiful in its majestic flow.

Both the old and the new poets have celebrated the beauty of the flooded river but they were not alive to or sympathetic with human suffering caused by the monstrous flood.

This is an ironic reference to Madurai as a seat of Tamilian culture, which according to him is in a state of decadence. He observes that the poets, past and present only speak of the river during the rains and floods. A description follows, of the river in summer.

It turns to a dry trickle, uncovering ‘sand ribs’. He details the underbelly of the river that stays hidden. Visible now, are the bits of straw and women’s hair that chokes the rusty gates of the dam and the bridges that are plastered over with ‘patches of repair’.

The narrator remarks wryly that the poets who sang and they, who now imitate them, see only the symbolism of vitality when the river is in flood. With a few stark images, the poet completes the picture of the river and its complexities which have been glossed over and ignored. Yet not to stress the merely the grim, unlovely angle, the poet brings alive the beauty too, which lies open in the summer. This has been lost on the sensibilities of the past poets:

the wet stones glistening like sleepy

crocodiles, the dry ones

shaven water-buffaloes lounging in the sun…. (13-15)

Using vivid similes, he refers to a lack of imagination of the old poets who ‘only sang of the floods’.

In stanza two, the poet speaks of the river in flood in the rains.  He was there once and saw what happened. The river in spate destroys everything in its wake from live-stock to houses to human life. This happens once a year and has been continuing for years in the same pattern.

He notes the casual approach of the of the towns people. Anxiously they talk of the rising level of water and enumerate mechanically the ‘precise’ number of steps as the water brims over the bathing places.

The river carries off:

‘three village houses,

one pregnant woman

and a couple of cows

named Gopi and Brinda as usual.’

These are itemized, mentioned cursorily as in a list—three, one, two. The early poets and their successors tick off the losses as mere statistics, unheeding of the destruction, suffering and human pain left in the wake of the flood. Their aim, according to the speaker, is simply to record a sensational event to arrest the momentary attention of the people. He finds this attitude shocking and callous.

Between the village houses and Gopi and Brinda, the two cows is remarked one pregnant woman. No one knows what her name is and she is glossed over peremptorily. Yet the poet imagines that she may have drowned with not one life in her but two—‘twins in her’ which kicked at blank walls even before birth.

The poet-visitor, a modern poet probably Ramanujan himself, visits Madurai when the Vaikai is in flood. He was extremely shaken by the dismal scene of utter destruction caused by the river to life and property all around. He is even more stunned by the insensitive attitude and the complete unconcern of the city poets, both old and new, towards this tragic situation of human suffering and fatality. He was distraught that they ‘sang only of the floods’ when they should have rather tried to alleviate the people of their miserable state. Being a realist himself, he takes a dig at these city poets for dodging reality and attempting to flee into a made-up world of fantasy and fancy.

Continuing with the analysis of "A River" by Ramanujan, the poets deemed it enough to versify and exalt the river only when it flooded once a year. While they sang of the river as a creative force giving birth to new life, the paradox of the pregnant woman who drowned with twins in her eludes them. Embracing only the glory of the floods, they fail to realize its more complex repercussions on human life. The narrator gives us a more complete impression of the river as destroyer as well as preserver. He is sarcastic about the poets of yore who sees only the floods to write about and that too merely once a year.

‘the river has water enough

to be poetic

about only once a year’

Humor is presented in the names of the cows and the colored diapers of the twins to help tell them apart. Yet this too, is an attack on the orthodoxy of Hinduism. While cows are given names, no one knows who the pregnant woman is nor are they concerned. Human sacrifices were performed to appease the gods because of droughts in Tamil Nadu, and the drowned twin babies may be a reference to such cruel and orthodox rituals.

"A River" illustrates many significant features of Ramanujan’s poetry, such as his adept linking of the past and the present so as to introduce the idea of continuity, his effortless depiction of the typical Indian surroundings. The use of wit, irony and humour, and dramatic imagery is distinctive of his style. This is an unusual poem with many layers of meaning and is a commentary on the indifference of the old and modern poets to the ravages caused by the river in flood and the pain and suffering caused to humans.

Ardhendu De 

updated. 

Reference

1. A. K. Ramanujan | Poetry Foundation. (n.d.). Poetry Foundation. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/a-k-ramanujan

2. A. K. Ramanujan - Wikipedia. (2017, August 27). A. K. Ramanujan - Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._K._Ramanujan