He even poured a little paraffin upon the bitten toe and put a match to it. I watched the flame feeding on my mother.

Context: These lines are taken from the poem Night of the Scorpion composed by Nissim Ezekiel.

Explanation: The poet remembers the dark rainy night when his mother was stung by Scorpion It was raining heavily, a scorpion had taken shelter, under a sack of rice.

When the poet’s mother went to get rice from the granary, the scorpion bit her and disappeared in the rain

The neighboring peasants came in large numbers with candles and lanterns. They chanted the name of God to paralyze the evil one, they wanted to stop the scorpion from moving.

They believed the effect of the poison would increase with the movement of the scorpion. They wanted to kill it, but it wasn’t found anywhere.

The poet’s mother was in great pain. The people prayed that all the sins of her previous birth be burnt. 

They believed the world to be unreal and wanted the pain to absolve all her sins, and decrease the sufferings of the next birth also. More and more people walked in. The poet’s mother continued to suffer and was in great pain.

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