Interpretation: The poem, “A River”, is about a river in the ancient city of Madurai in the heart of Tamil Nadu.
Madurai is a “City of temples and poets”. In this city, the poets sing of cities and temples. The river Vaikai flows through Madurai, which has about two thousand years of Tamil culture.
The river is “A point of departure for ironically contrasting the relative attitudes of the old and new Tamil poets, both of whom are exposed for their callousness to suffering, when it is so obvious, as a result of the floods”.
The poem has 39 lines. The first three lines tell us about the location of the river Madurai, a city of ‘temples and poets’.
The succeeding lines tell about the loss and havoc wrought by the devastating floods. In summer when the river grows lean and dry, it bares to the sight the sand, ribs, straw and women’s hair clogging the water gates, the bridges with patches of repair, and the wet and dry stones glistening in the sun.
The ancient poets sang only of the floods, not of the ruins and ravages caused by them. Ruins and ravages are highlighted in the lines that follow.
The ancient poet paid a casual visit to the river when it was in its full fury, and when the people talked of its speedy rising, submerging the ‘cobbled steps’ and the “bathing places, and when the stories were whispered around about the sweeping off the three village houses and the drowning of ‘one pregnant woman’ and ‘a couple of cows/ named Gopi and Brinda’.
His visit was no more than a pleasure trip or a curiosity trip undertaken in a sportive mood, for he was totally indifferent towards the losses and sorrows of the people.
The new poets have also adopted the same sort of attitude.
These poets never versified the agonies and miseries of the people of the drowning of the pregnant woman, with perhaps twins in her belly who died before their birth, of the carrying away of the three village houses and a couple of cows.
The poem may be a welcome attempt at showing the poet’s concern about the sufferers and the bereaved. It shows the poet’s sympathy for them.
Thus, it is a realistic portrayal of the people’s unmerited suffering at the hands of cruel and uncontrollable Doomsters, who often heap ‘travails and teens’ on humanity.
The poet shows his love not only for human beings but for all creatures. The poem may be titled River but is less about a river than about poetry itself.
The tone is ironic, particularly in the portrayal of the indifferent attitude of the old and new poets towards the destructive role of the river. Village houses, pregnant woman, coins, and rivers are part and parcel of rural life.
The old city of Madurai owes greatly to the river for it is the seat of Tamil culture. If we keep the cultural efflorescence of many big Indian cities in mind,
we shall discover that it was mainly because of the positive contributions of the rivers and the seas, which served as the real source of conveyance and transportation in those good old days.
Big cities like Delhi, Agra, Kanpur, Allahabad, Varanasi, Patna, Calcutta, Mumbai, Chennai, Madurai, and many others are all situated on the banks of the rivers and the sea.
The poet cannot think of the sand-ribs, straw, and women’s hair clinging to the water gates, the rusty bars under the bridges with patches of repair all over them.
They have neither time nor leisure for such things. They move about in this world like elfins or spirits, having no concern with the tragic sides of human existence.
Ramanujan has a unique tone of voice, a feather that accounts for the characteristic style of his poetry.
Floods do not seem to affect anyone, its havoc goes unnoticed even by the ‘new’ poets who could be expected to be socially conscious but are not.
Their claims to be new or modern are exposed. Unable to shake off the burden of the past, they only repeat what the old poets have said.
Thus, the poem makes an oblique comment on the sterility of much of contemporary Tamil Poetry – an opinion that isn’t overtly stated.
Imagery
When the river dries to a trickle in the sand,’ every summer, its sand ribsil are bared, its water gates are clogged with “straw and women’s hair,” and the wet stones thus exposed glisten like sleepy crocodiles.”
The dry ones look like “shaven water-buffaloes lounging in the sun.” These images are fresh, original and memorable.
The poet adds that he visited the city for a day when they actually had the floods.
Again, we are given some vivid images of the rising river, of the pregnant woman being carried away, and of the almost comical pair of cows called Gopi and Brinda.
The poets ignored what all the people were talking about, but Ramanujan embellishes what happened during the floods by making the pregnant woman expect twins.
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