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  • Ecology AK Ramanujan

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    Showry Reddy Bandla
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    This poem describes how the speaker's mother gets severe migraines every time their three red champak trees bloom due to their heavy, fragrant pollen that spreads everywhere. The speaker wants to cut down the trees, but his mother refuses because the trees are as old as her and were seeded by a bird, seeing them as auspicious. She values the baskets of flowers they provide for religious offerings each year, though they curse one line of cousins with migraines. The poem explores the family themes important to Ramanujan and references Hindu beliefs, portraying the mother's angry yet sentimental attachment to the trees despite their negative effects.

    Original Description:

    english subject ecology for sem V degree

    Original Title

    Ecology

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    This poem describes how the speaker's mother gets severe migraines every time their three red champak trees bloom due to their heavy, fragrant pollen that spreads everywhere. The speaker wants to cut down the trees, but his mother refuses because the trees are as old as her and were seeded by a bird, seeing them as auspicious. She values the baskets of flowers they provide for religious offerings each year, though they curse one line of cousins with migraines. The poem explores the family themes important to Ramanujan and references Hindu beliefs, portraying the mother's angry yet sentimental attachment to the trees despite their negative effects.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as pdf or txt
    887 views2 pages

    Ecology AK Ramanujan

    Uploaded by

    Showry Reddy Bandla
    This poem describes how the speaker's mother gets severe migraines every time their three red champak trees bloom due to their heavy, fragrant pollen that spreads everywhere. The speaker wants to cut down the trees, but his mother refuses because the trees are as old as her and were seeded by a bird, seeing them as auspicious. She values the baskets of flowers they provide for religious offerings each year, though they curse one line of cousins with migraines. The poem explores the family themes important to Ramanujan and references Hindu beliefs, portraying the mother's angry yet sentimental attachment to the trees despite their negative effects.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Flag for inappropriate content
    Download as pdf or txt
    of 2

    Ecology

    AK Ramanujan
    The day after the first rain,
    for years, I would home
    in a rage,

    for I could see from a mile away


    our three Red Champak Trees
    had done it again,

    had burst into flower and given Mother


    her first blinding migraine
    of the season

    with their street-long heavy-hung


    yellow pollen fog of a fragrance
    no wind could sift,

    no door could shut out from our black-


    pillared house whose walls had ears
    and eyes,
    scales, smells, bone-creaks, nightly
    visiting voices, and were porous
    like us,

    but Mother, flashing her temper


    like her mother's twisted silver,
    grandchildren's knickers
    wet as the cold pack on her head,
    would not let us cut down
    a flowering tree

    almost as old as her, seeded,


    she said, by a passing bird's
    providential droppings

    to give her gods and her daughters


    and daughters' daughters basketsful
    of annual flower

    and for one line of cousins


    a dower of migraines in season.
    Summary
    This poem, „Ecology‟ is taken from Ramanujan‟s third volume of poems, „Second Sight‟,
    published in 1986. The speaker seems to be the poet himself or some imaginary person who is
    loyally devoted to his mother. He is very angry because his mother has a severe attack of
    migraine; a very bad kind of headache, often causing a person to vomit; which is caused by the
    fragrance of the pollen of the flower of the Red Champak every time it is in bloom. The
    fragrance is heavy and suffocating as the yellow pollen spreads everywhere. Even the doors of
    the speaker‟s house cannot prevent the strong smell from entering the house. The walls of the
    house are able to absorb almost everything-the sounds, sights, the human voices, the harsh
    sounds produced when new shoes are worn. But they cannot stop the fog of pollen dust from
    the Champak trees.

    The loving son therefore decides to cut down the tree, but he is prevented from doing so by his
    mother who sees the positive side of the tree in her garden. She says that the tree is as old as her
    and had been fertilized by the droppings of a passing bird by chance which is considered to be a
    very good omen. The positive side of it is that the tree provides many basketful of flowers to be
    offered to her gods and to „her daughters and daughter‟s daughters‟ every year, although the
    tree would give a terrible migraine to one line of cousins as a legacy. The yellow pollen fog is
    the yellow dust of pollen carried in the air which is thick and heavy like fog which covers the
    earth.

    This poem portrays Ramanujan‟s strong interest in the family as a very important theme of his
    poetic craft. His memories of the past would inevitably bring pictures of his family, especially
    his mother who is self-sacrificing. There is also a reference to his Hindu heritage as he mentions
    the gods and the ancient beliefs in the poem. The sense of irony is indicated when the mother
    very angrily protests the idea of cutting down the tree even though she is suffering very badly
    from the migraine caused by it. She has a kind of emotional attachment to the tree, saying that it
    is as old as her.

    „Ecology is a poem which could be read as one single sentence. However, each stanza has one
    particular idea. There is a casual connection between the ideas and they flow from one stanza to
    the next. „Flash her temper‟; an instance of the use of irony because she is very angry at the idea
    of having the tree cut down. The actual meaning of the word „Ecology‟ is not followed here but
    the poet seems to convey the thought that a particular kind of tree may have both negative and
    positive factors and therefore it need not be pulled down.

    I. Answer the following.


    1.What caused “blinding migraine” to the poet‟s mother?
    2.Describe the champak trees and their effect on the people and the place.
    3.Why would the mother not let anyone cut the trees? What does this suggest?
    4.Compare and contrast the attitudes of the speaker and his mother towards the champak
    trees.
    5. Write the summary of the poem in your words.

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