ON KILLING A TREE
Gieve Patel
Introduction
Born in 1940, Gieve Patel is an important presence in the history of modern Indian poetry in English. He is a poet, playwright and painter, as well as a doctor by profession. He has written three books of poetry (Poems, How Do You Withstand, Body and Mirrored Mirroring); three plays (Princes, Savaksa and Mr Behram); and held several exhibitions of his paintings in India and abroad. He lives in Mumbai.
“Gieve Patel is hardly an avant-garde writer and he does not pretend to be one,” writes scholar Sudesh Mishra. “Belonging to the same generation as (Adil) Jussawalla and (Arvind Krishna) Mehrotra, he is a poet whose vision eludes simplistic modernist labels and equations.” Mishra attributes this to the fact that Patel (like poets Kamala Das and Jayanta Mahapatra) has never been a formal student of literature or linguistics.
The enduring concerns in Patel’s poetry are the besieged terrain of the human body, its frailty, absurdity and perishability; the vulgar social inequalities of caste and class that continue to assail post-Independence India; the predicament of the subaltern, perennially relegated to the sidelines of history and art; the daily catalog of violence, conflict and pain that make up “the century’s folk song”; the perpetual looming shadow of physical death; and a probing curiosity about what – if anything – lies beyond a world of fraught materiality.
In the accompanying interview, Patel describes himself as “a profane monk” whose poetry reveals “a slightly sick concern with the body”. This preoccupation is evident in Patel’s poetic terrain (evoked time and again with horrified but rapt fascination): a world of nerve endings and viscera, ragged fiber and vein, gnarled root and leprous hide, pervaded by the overwhelmingly organic odors of sex, secretion and excretion. The tone is frequently flat, dispassionate, even offhand, wary of any attempt to ennoble, prettify or sentimentalize the subject matter. The existential questions – and they are never far away in Patel’s work – are not presented as airy abstractions; they emerge thickly, haltingly, from the glutinous dough of corporeality that is the focus of what seems to be the gaze of a committed forensic pathologist.
Exercises
I. Answer the following questions
1. In which collection was the poem “On Killing a Tree” originally published?
a. Poems b. How Do You Withstand, Body c. Mirrored Mirroring d. None of these
Ans: Poems
2. What does the word “hide” mean in leprous hide?
a. Skin b. leaf c. Sickness D. None of these
Ans: Skin
II. Answer the following questions in a sentence or two;
1. Comment on the opening line of the poem “On Killing a Tree”
According to him, it will take too much time to kill a tree. It is not just a simple jab: a quick stab or blow: to do the job.
2. Why does the poet say that a simple job of the knife will not kill a tree?
It is not so easy to kill a tree because the tree has grown over a period of time, taking in from the earth, sun, air, and water.
3. Why does the poet try to teach us how to kill a tree?
If not uprooted properly the tree can grow from its roots again. Here through sarcasm and irony the poet implies his anger against cutting trees.
4. What does the poet say of the resiliatory power of trees?
The bleeding bark of the tree will heal and it will rise and grow to its former size from its roots.
5. What does the poet mean by anchoring earth and earth cave?
Earth is here portrayed as a ‘cave’ or Mother Earth, the cave being symbolic of the womb. While the root remains hidden in the cave of Mother Earth, even though Man may attack the tree, his reach is limited. He may chop off the leaves and the branches, but so long as the root is safe within the earth, the tree will not be seriously injured or damaged. At some point, Man seems to get this, and so he targets the part of the tree that holds the secret connection between the source of life and the tree, the root.
6. What does the pet mean by the strength of the tree exposed?
The strength of the tree lies in its roots, which the poet asks to snap out in order to kill the tree. Thus, the phrase “the strength of the tree exposed” refers to the roots of the tree being exposed to sunlight and air.
7. What does the poet mean by the last line “and then it is done?”
Then the poet concludes the poem with the phrase: “It is done.” That brief statement encompasses the triumphant tone of the humans who have at last succeeded in killing the tree.
8. What is the tone of Gieve Patel’s poem On Killing a Tree?
Sarcasm and irony.
9. Comment on the imagery of the bleeding bark.
Once the tree is chopped its sap will trickle off which is compared to blood.
III. Answer the following questions in a paragraph
1. The step by step process needed for killing a tree.
Gieve Patel sarcastically explains the process of cutting a tree as a voice against cutting trees in his poem ‘On Killing a Tree’. It should not be done using a knife but it is to be hacked and chopped. That is not enough as new sprouts will come out of it, so it should be pulled out from its roots. It is to be roped, tied and pulled out, snapped out from the earth. Then it must be put to scorch and choke under the sun, thereby browning, hardening and withering
2. Why it is not an easy job to kill a tree?
It is not so easy to kill a tree because the tree has grown over a period of time, taking in from the earth, sun, air, and water. One will not succeed in doing so by just a “jab”, a stroke of a knife. It has been nourished by the very elements of existence, earth, wind, water and air. So, in pitting himself against a tree, in a sense, a human pits himself against all these elements that have invested their strength in the tree. That’s why it’s not so easy to kill.
3. Comment on the language of the poem
4. What is the message of On killing a tree?
The poem on killing a tree is Patel’s wake up call to the citizen of the 21st century to think again before they heartlessly chop trees. It’s time to become conscious of the irreversible damage we are un‐thinkingly doing to our home planet, Earth. It is also time to take a more holistic life on Earth, considering trees and plants not as lower life forms that can be treated treat without compassion, but rather as an equally important aspect of Nature. Only this change in attitude can ensure that our beautiful green planet will continue to be habitable for our future generations.
IV. Answer the following questions in about 300 words
1. “On Killing a Tree” describes man cruelty and violence to nature discuss.
Gieve Patel sarcastically explains the process of cutting a tree as a voice against cutting trees in his poem ‘On Killing a Tree’. Though the poet employs skillful process of killing a tree, he is actually showing his resentment against those who kill nature. His style is ironic and detached. It is a graphic picture of man’s cruelty towards Nature which is symbolized by the tree. He gives a total description of the annihilation of a tree. Man’s greed is not quenched by the mere physical process of killing a tree. The tree which symbolizes Nature has grown Slowly consuming the earth and rising out of its crust. It takes much time to kill it
It should not be done in a “simple jab of the knife” but it is to be hacked and chopped. That is not enough as new sprouts will come out of it, so it should be pulled out from its roots. It is to be roped, tied and pulled out, snapped out from the earth. Then it must be put to scorch and choke under the sun, thereby browning, hardening and withering. The poet brings all the cruelty done to trees by humans. Often it is forgotten that trees are living things and nature is often neglected in the mad race of human greediness. This greediness to wealth has made man insensitive and heartless to other organisms. Tomorrow’s concerns are less important. He does not think of preserving this earth fit for living for coming generations. His cruelties continue when the tree log is left to scorch and burn in the sun.
The poem is also about the endless generosity nature offers to man. However man’s cruelties continue the tree is in constant persistence to be born again.
“The bleeding bark will heal
And from close to the ground
Will rise curled green twigs”
The lines, shows the tree’s attempt to revive from its broken parts. Its strength is offered by nature. It absorbs sunlight, air and water for its sustenance but man exploits nature for his greed.
**********************
Gieve Patel
Introduction
Born in 1940, Gieve Patel is an important presence in the history of modern Indian poetry in English. He is a poet, playwright and painter, as well as a doctor by profession. He has written three books of poetry (Poems, How Do You Withstand, Body and Mirrored Mirroring); three plays (Princes, Savaksa and Mr Behram); and held several exhibitions of his paintings in India and abroad. He lives in Mumbai.
“Gieve Patel is hardly an avant-garde writer and he does not pretend to be one,” writes scholar Sudesh Mishra. “Belonging to the same generation as (Adil) Jussawalla and (Arvind Krishna) Mehrotra, he is a poet whose vision eludes simplistic modernist labels and equations.” Mishra attributes this to the fact that Patel (like poets Kamala Das and Jayanta Mahapatra) has never been a formal student of literature or linguistics.
The enduring concerns in Patel’s poetry are the besieged terrain of the human body, its frailty, absurdity and perishability; the vulgar social inequalities of caste and class that continue to assail post-Independence India; the predicament of the subaltern, perennially relegated to the sidelines of history and art; the daily catalog of violence, conflict and pain that make up “the century’s folk song”; the perpetual looming shadow of physical death; and a probing curiosity about what – if anything – lies beyond a world of fraught materiality.
In the accompanying interview, Patel describes himself as “a profane monk” whose poetry reveals “a slightly sick concern with the body”. This preoccupation is evident in Patel’s poetic terrain (evoked time and again with horrified but rapt fascination): a world of nerve endings and viscera, ragged fiber and vein, gnarled root and leprous hide, pervaded by the overwhelmingly organic odors of sex, secretion and excretion. The tone is frequently flat, dispassionate, even offhand, wary of any attempt to ennoble, prettify or sentimentalize the subject matter. The existential questions – and they are never far away in Patel’s work – are not presented as airy abstractions; they emerge thickly, haltingly, from the glutinous dough of corporeality that is the focus of what seems to be the gaze of a committed forensic pathologist.
Exercises
I. Answer the following questions
1. In which collection was the poem “On Killing a Tree” originally published?
a. Poems b. How Do You Withstand, Body c. Mirrored Mirroring d. None of these
Ans: Poems
2. What does the word “hide” mean in leprous hide?
a. Skin b. leaf c. Sickness D. None of these
Ans: Skin
II. Answer the following questions in a sentence or two;
1. Comment on the opening line of the poem “On Killing a Tree”
According to him, it will take too much time to kill a tree. It is not just a simple jab: a quick stab or blow: to do the job.
2. Why does the poet say that a simple job of the knife will not kill a tree?
It is not so easy to kill a tree because the tree has grown over a period of time, taking in from the earth, sun, air, and water.
3. Why does the poet try to teach us how to kill a tree?
If not uprooted properly the tree can grow from its roots again. Here through sarcasm and irony the poet implies his anger against cutting trees.
4. What does the poet say of the resiliatory power of trees?
The bleeding bark of the tree will heal and it will rise and grow to its former size from its roots.
5. What does the poet mean by anchoring earth and earth cave?
Earth is here portrayed as a ‘cave’ or Mother Earth, the cave being symbolic of the womb. While the root remains hidden in the cave of Mother Earth, even though Man may attack the tree, his reach is limited. He may chop off the leaves and the branches, but so long as the root is safe within the earth, the tree will not be seriously injured or damaged. At some point, Man seems to get this, and so he targets the part of the tree that holds the secret connection between the source of life and the tree, the root.
6. What does the pet mean by the strength of the tree exposed?
The strength of the tree lies in its roots, which the poet asks to snap out in order to kill the tree. Thus, the phrase “the strength of the tree exposed” refers to the roots of the tree being exposed to sunlight and air.
7. What does the poet mean by the last line “and then it is done?”
Then the poet concludes the poem with the phrase: “It is done.” That brief statement encompasses the triumphant tone of the humans who have at last succeeded in killing the tree.
8. What is the tone of Gieve Patel’s poem On Killing a Tree?
Sarcasm and irony.
9. Comment on the imagery of the bleeding bark.
Once the tree is chopped its sap will trickle off which is compared to blood.
III. Answer the following questions in a paragraph
1. The step by step process needed for killing a tree.
Gieve Patel sarcastically explains the process of cutting a tree as a voice against cutting trees in his poem ‘On Killing a Tree’. It should not be done using a knife but it is to be hacked and chopped. That is not enough as new sprouts will come out of it, so it should be pulled out from its roots. It is to be roped, tied and pulled out, snapped out from the earth. Then it must be put to scorch and choke under the sun, thereby browning, hardening and withering
2. Why it is not an easy job to kill a tree?
It is not so easy to kill a tree because the tree has grown over a period of time, taking in from the earth, sun, air, and water. One will not succeed in doing so by just a “jab”, a stroke of a knife. It has been nourished by the very elements of existence, earth, wind, water and air. So, in pitting himself against a tree, in a sense, a human pits himself against all these elements that have invested their strength in the tree. That’s why it’s not so easy to kill.
3. Comment on the language of the poem
4. What is the message of On killing a tree?
The poem on killing a tree is Patel’s wake up call to the citizen of the 21st century to think again before they heartlessly chop trees. It’s time to become conscious of the irreversible damage we are un‐thinkingly doing to our home planet, Earth. It is also time to take a more holistic life on Earth, considering trees and plants not as lower life forms that can be treated treat without compassion, but rather as an equally important aspect of Nature. Only this change in attitude can ensure that our beautiful green planet will continue to be habitable for our future generations.
IV. Answer the following questions in about 300 words
1. “On Killing a Tree” describes man cruelty and violence to nature discuss.
Gieve Patel sarcastically explains the process of cutting a tree as a voice against cutting trees in his poem ‘On Killing a Tree’. Though the poet employs skillful process of killing a tree, he is actually showing his resentment against those who kill nature. His style is ironic and detached. It is a graphic picture of man’s cruelty towards Nature which is symbolized by the tree. He gives a total description of the annihilation of a tree. Man’s greed is not quenched by the mere physical process of killing a tree. The tree which symbolizes Nature has grown Slowly consuming the earth and rising out of its crust. It takes much time to kill it
It should not be done in a “simple jab of the knife” but it is to be hacked and chopped. That is not enough as new sprouts will come out of it, so it should be pulled out from its roots. It is to be roped, tied and pulled out, snapped out from the earth. Then it must be put to scorch and choke under the sun, thereby browning, hardening and withering. The poet brings all the cruelty done to trees by humans. Often it is forgotten that trees are living things and nature is often neglected in the mad race of human greediness. This greediness to wealth has made man insensitive and heartless to other organisms. Tomorrow’s concerns are less important. He does not think of preserving this earth fit for living for coming generations. His cruelties continue when the tree log is left to scorch and burn in the sun.
The poem is also about the endless generosity nature offers to man. However man’s cruelties continue the tree is in constant persistence to be born again.
“The bleeding bark will heal
And from close to the ground
Will rise curled green twigs”
The lines, shows the tree’s attempt to revive from its broken parts. Its strength is offered by nature. It absorbs sunlight, air and water for its sustenance but man exploits nature for his greed.
**********************
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