Nissim Ezekiel and Eunice de

UNIT 1 NISSIM EZEKIEL AND EUNICE DE Souza

SOUZA
Structure
1.0 Objectives
1.1 Introduction
1.2 The Historical Background
1.3 Indian English Poetry
1.4 The Modernist Trend in Indian English Writing
1.5 Nissim Ezekiel: An Overview
1.6 Nissim Ezekiel’s “Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa T.S”: A Reading
1.6.1 The Text
1.6.2 Analysis
1.7 Ezekiel’s Style and Approach
1.8 Eunice de Souza: An Overview
1.9 “Bequest” by Eunice de Souza: A Reading
1.10 Eunice de Souza’s Aesthetic Approach
1.11 Eunice de Souza and the Feminist Trend in Indian Writing
1.12 Let us Sum up
1.13 Glossary
1.14 Questions
1.15 References
1.16 Suggested Readings

1.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit you will be able to:
gain knowledge about the historical background of Indian English Poetry;
discuss the point of Nissim Ezekiel and Eunice de Souza prescribed for
you;
write about the two poet’s style of writing poetry.

1.1 INTRODUCTION
This unit intends to familiarize you with trends in Indian English writing of the
twentieth century. The discussion would begin with contextualizing Indian
literature written in English in the post-Independence period. Specifically, the
unit focuses on two seminal poets of the twentieth century, Nissim Ezekiel and
Eunice de Souza, who were instrumental in establishing what can be called the
canon of Indian English Poetry. After reading this unit you should be able to gain
an understanding of the evolution of Indian English poetry and its lasting appeal.
The unit would acquaint you with the major literary trends that influenced writers
in the second half of the twentieth century. Through the writings of Ezekiel, you
will see how tenets of modernism, essentially a European movement, flourished
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Indian English Poetry in India. In the writings of de Souza you will find the growth of a peculiar Indian
feminism. Let us first try and understand the historical moment to which these
poets belong, and later we shall explore the category of Indian Poetryin English.

1.2 THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The decades following the Independence of India brought along new challenges
for the country. The partition of 1947 created huge displacement, with millions
of refugees left without livelihood and home. This was followed by the tussle the
Indian government had with the Princely states that had to be integrated within
the country. There was also growing discontent regarding the national language
during the 1950s, leading to the creation of linguistic states in 1956. The map of
India was in a state of flux. Add to this the fact that there were the wars with
China (1962) and Pakistan (1965 and 1971), and the death of Jawaharlal Nehru
(1964) that further disturbed peace in Indian’s life. Alongside, there were efforts
made to strengthen the process of nation building, implementing Five Year plans
and setting up of an industrial infrastructure to ensure progress and development.
In spite of this, poverty and joblessness continued to be the scourge of the nation.
What do you think could be the possible reasons for this? In education, even as
the percentage of literacy improved, there wasn’t a cohesive education policy to
strengthen it and ensure its growth. Importantly, the idealism and selfless devotion
of the nationalist movement of the 1930s and 40s dwindled in the post-
Independence period and became clichéd words often misused to gain personal
ends. The said idealism was replaced by competition, individual growth and
careerism, strife for affluence, and a complete disregard of socio-political thought.

These are some of the challenges that India faced in the post-Independence period
and become the backdrop against which literature of the time might be evaluated.

1.3 INDIAN ENGLISH POETRY

It is important to remember that politically India became free in 1947 but culturally
it remained in the stranglehold of the British by becoming a member of the British
Commonwealth (see glossary). Thus, cultural influence of the British survived
which ensured its hegemony for decades to come. In this atmosphere, the use of
English language for communication, expression, and education gained currency
among people belonging to the new middle class in India. There was an increased
stress on study of English language and literature and a distancing from the
regional languages, the onward movement of literatures in the regional languages
notwithstanding. Owing to the spike in literacy rates, English readership increased
and this added to the growth and popularity of English in India. Indian English
literature thus attained a new found importance and the result was that several
English journals in India cropped up adding further to the existing ones.

It is at this time that we notice the new trend in Indian English writing, one of
bringing out literary journals and magazines that were entirely devoted to creative
writing and literary criticism. The concerned journals published literary works
from aspiring writers and at the same time presented critical essays that outlined
the aesthetics of modern Indian literature. They taught an entire generation of
writers in India regarding how to write and what to elect for focus. Western
formalist techniques were discussed and applied in Indian literatures. Specifically,
the journals devoted to the cause of Indian English poetry gave immense fillip to
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its development. Literary and Art magazines began publishing poems by young Nissim Ezekiel and Eunice de
Souza
aspiring writers and published reviews on them. A new wave of literary practice
surfaced at the time and Indian writing in English on the whole received greater
recognition than before.

Indian English poetry, particularly in the post-Independence period, was driven

by the new urge for self-expression and aesthetic form. The romantic and
nationalist strains in poetry that were predominant in the first half of the century
were increasingly sidelined in the new phase of India’s development. The focus
of writers shifted towards ideas of individualism, urban life, self-scrutiny along
with an engagement with aspects of tradition and modernity. Writing during this
period turned experiential, focused as it was on the self and the journey of this
self. There was also an entire movement at the time to enhance India’s literary
capabilities and create a literature that was distinctly Indian, one that spoke of
the new times while being mindful of the ancient Indian ethos. Importantly, it
was in poetry that the post-independence period witnessed the most crucial
developments. In the fifties arose a school of poets who tried to turn their backs
on the romantic tradition and write a verse more in tune with the age, its general
temper and its literary ethos. They tried, with varying degrees of success, to
naturalize in the Indian soil the modernistic elements derived from the poetic
revolution effected by T.S. Eliot and others in the twentieth century British and
American poetry (Naik, 201).

The effort to look at India’s past and present with the available tools of western
modern thought gave a distinct character to poetry written during the time. Let
us discuss the western movement of modernism that was inherited by writers in
India in the post-Independence period.

1.4 THE MODERNIST TREND IN INDIAN

ENGLISH WRITING
Modernism in India found feet specifically in the post-independence period when
the eye of the poet turned inwards, as it were, towards the self. In the 1950s,
‘new poetry’ had come into being in different languages (in Hindi it went by the
name of ‘nai kavita’). In English the “new poetry” movement was strengthened
by the establishment of the Writer’s Workshop in Calcutta in 1958 founded by
P.Lal and some others who used it as a forum to discuss features of western
modernism. Its “Miscellany” was devoted to experimental works written by new
writers on the block.In fact, in 1958 the first modernist anthology of Indian poetry
in English was edited by P.Lal and K.R. Rao titled Modern Indo-Anglian Poetry.
Nissim Ezekiel was among the first new poets who brought out entire collections
of poems based on the new themes of experimentation and representation of the
personal voice of the poet. Ezekiels’ works made modernism even more popular
and appealing among Indian readers.

A modernist poet refrained from advocating politics or making a social comment

in literature. Since the war against the imperialist colonizer had been won,
Literature turned away from the problems of life and society and in most cases
found itself unequipped to deal with the crisis. There was at best a sense of
helplessness and personal anguish visible in modernist poetry, which became
the popular ‘alienation theme’ vividly present in Ezekiels’ poems. The aggression
and zeal for the social ideal were replaced by individual growth and struggle for
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Indian English Poetry selfhood. Modernism was a pan-India movement and was not limited to literatures
in English. Its emphases, however, were similar across regions and languages.
On this issue, the literary critic E. V. Ramakrishnan in his book Indigenous
Imaginaries: Literature, Region, Modernity has made an important observation.
To quote:

The term modernism implies a literary/artistic movement that was

characterized by experimentation, conscious rejection of the nationalist/
Romantic as well as the popular, and the cultivation of an individualist,
cosmopolitan and insular world view. In the European context, it
signified a set of tendencies in artistic expression and writing styles of
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through a new aesthetic
that was iconoclastic, insular and elitist. The aesthetics of modernism
in the west had a transnational, metropolitan worldview that excluded
the claims of the local and the national and made no concession to the
popular taste. While the modernism that emerged in Indian literatures
shared many of these defining features, its political affiliations and
ideological orientations were markedly different. Due to its postcolonial
location, the Indian modernism did not share the imperial or
metropolitan aspirations of its European counterpart. It invested heavily
in regional cosmopolitan traditions. It was oppositional in content and
questioned the colonial legacies of the nationalist discourse. It was elitist
and formalistic and deeply distrustful of the popular domain. (241)

Thus, modernism was “elitist” in nature and catered to a limited number of

academic groups, and kept out the popular base more or less entirely. Unlike the
literature of the pre-Independence period, particularly the progressive literature
that centered on social themes, modernist writing focused on individualism and
alienation from society. Its approach was formalistic. Experimentation with
different literary forms made it appear novel and inspiring. A modernist poet is
ever aware that one is responsible for one’s own actions even in the face of
situations that render one helpless. It is this awareness that leads to guilt and
anxiety in the modernist individual and becomes a perpetual source of grief and
outpouring in modernist poems. Ezekiel, despite his contributions to the new
literary practice in India that paved way for a canon, needs to be understood in
the modernist framework. We might remember that Ezekiel was educated in the
western model of education and that he was an urban poet belonging to the
metropolis. His emphases are largely drawn from western models and his
inspirations come from the works of English modernist poets such as T.S. Eliot
and Ezra Pound.

1.5 NISSIM EZEKIEL: AN OVERVIEW

Nissim Ezekiel (1924-2004) was born in Bombay in a Bene Israel Jewish family.
His parents were both teachers and under their influence Ezekiel soon took to
translating works from Marathi to English, as well as writing plays and editing
fictional works. His first poem was published in 1942 in a literary journal. By
1947, Ezekiel completed his Masters from Bombay University and began teaching
at Khalsa College, Bombay. In 1948 a friend of Ezekiel’s, Alkazi, bought tickets
for them to sail for England. Ezekiel remarks of that period of youth as one full
of adventure. He says –”So with 10 pounds in my pocket, and the exuberance
and optimism of youth, I boarded the Jal Azadi” (Bombay Magazine, 1983). The
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years spent from 1948 to 1952 in a foreign country brought new experiences and Nissim Ezekiel and Eunice de
Souza
learning for Ezekiel, among them a few unpleasant too. He stayed in a small
basement room, wrote reviews and other short pieces to make ends meet. In a
poem, he wrote his impressions of the place thus, “The view from the basement
room is rather small/ A patch or two of green, a bit of sky” (“A Poem of
Dedication”). Ezekiel joined a clerical position at the Indian High Commission
in London but soon grew tired and wished to return to Bombay. To this end he
took up a job along with a friend at a cargo ship that was going to India where the
two did menial tasks of scrubbing and washing. Before sailing, however, Ezekiel
was able to send the manuscript of his poems to the Fortune Press London and
the volume got published in 1952. Thus, his first collection of poems titled A
Time to Change was published in London and was based on his experiences of
that period. Once back in India, Ezekiel took up job as sub-editor of The Illustrated
Weekly of India under the editor C. R. Mandy, who was instrumental in cultivating
the new literary sensibility in India. In 1953 his second collection of poems
titled Sixty Poems came out. Editing added finesse to his poems as Ezekiel became
ever more conscious of the art of writing.

In his later years, along with writing and publishing poetry, Ezekiel became a
leading literary critic of his day as he edited and published magazines, and advising
young writers how to write poetry. About these years of the 1950s of learning
and practicing writing, Ezekiel has said, “I joined Shilpi Advertising as copywriter
and in the earlier part of the mornings I edited Quest, the sister magazine to
Encounter. I also wrote a great deal of literary and art criticism, the latter of
which Alkazi taught me, though he never cared to write it himself. During my
five years at Shilpi, I was elevated to the manager’s position and then sent to the
USA to study their hard sell techniques. But I learnt more about art and other
things there than about advertising” (Bombay Magazine, 1983). By 1960s Ezekiel
had established himself as a poet and critic to reckon with. He was appointed as
lecturer at Mithibai College in 1961 and later joined the Bombay University and
gained professorship there. A series of publications appeared after this. These
include the following collections: The Third (1959), The Unfinished Man (1960),
The Exact Name (1965), Hymns in Darkness (1976) and Latter Day Psalms
(1982).

Ezekiel was heavily influenced by the Irish-English poet, W. B. Yeats, and

identified with him at the level of identity and politics. He felt himself to be like
Yeats both an insider and outsider in his country. Note that Ezekiel was a Jew
belonging to the Bene Israel community. It is believed that a group of this Jewish
community landed in Southern Maharashtra 2000 years ago when their ship was
marooned in a storm. Most of those who travelled didn’t return and decided to
settle in India instead. Thus, while Ezekiel was born in India his culture and
roots come from elsewhere. Yeats on the other hand was an Irishman who settled
in England. In his poetry, he always returned to the Celtic myths of Ireland for
inspiration and blended the English modernist approach with his ‘Irishness,’ as
it were. Ezekiel draws a lot from Yeats’ works. In fact, Ezekiels’ poem “Enterprise”
is from the collection The Unfinished Man the title of which was borrowed from
Yeats’ epigraph to his poem “A Dialogue of Self and Soul”.

Linda Hess, a scholar and friend of Ezekiel defined him as “an endless explorer
of the labyrinths of the mind, the devious delvings and twistings of the ego, and
the ceaseless attempt of man and poet to define himself, to find through all the
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Indian English Poetry myth and maze a way to honesty and love” (Quest, 1966).Some of the themes
and issues in Ezekiels’ poems include the notion of time and its changing course;
the metaphor of the journey and pilgrimage; departure from home and the return
to it; and struggle for selfhood. In an attempt to pursue passions and find balance
in life, Ezekiel writes in a poem: “I do not want the yogi’s concentration/ I do not
want the perfect charity/ Of Saints nor the Tyrant’s endless power/I want a human
balance humanly acquired” (“A Poem of Dedication”). Ezekiel can be both
Philosophical and abstract, and material and witty. “Goodbye Party for Miss
Pushpa T.S” belongs to the latter kind. It is a poem written in a humorous style
and is both amusing and ironical. Let us read this poem and try locating its
significance.

1.6 NISSIM EZEKIEL’S “GOODBYE PARTY FOR

MISS PUSHPA T.S”: A READING
1.6.1 The text
Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa T.S.

Friends,
our dear sister
is departing for foreign
in two three days,
and
we are meeting today
to wish her bon voyage.

You are all knowing, friends,

What sweetness is in Miss Pushpa.
I don’t mean only external sweetness
but internal sweetness.
Miss Pushpa is smiling and smiling
even for no reason but simply because
she is feeling.

Miss Pushpa is coming

from very high family.
Her father was renowned advocate
in Bulsar or Surat,
I am not remembering now which place.

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Surat? Ah, yes, Nissim Ezekiel and Eunice de
Souza
once only I stayed in Surat
with family members
of my uncle’s very old friend-
his wife was cooking nicely…
that was long time ago.

Coming back to Miss Pushpa

she is most popular lady
with men also and ladies also.

Whenever I asked her to do anything,

she was saying, ‘Just now only
I will do it.’ That is showing
good spirit. I am always
appreciating the good spirit.

Pushpa Miss is never saying no.

Whatever I or anybody is asking
she is always saying yes,
and today she is going
to improve her prospect
and we are wishing her bon voyage.
Now I ask other speakers to speak
and afterwards Miss Pushpa
will do summing up.

1.6.2 Analysis
Let us see the facts that emerge from the poem—to begin with, we know that the
speaker is addressing a group of people gathered to bid farewell to Pushpa T.S.
who is going to settle down abroad; next, Pushpa T.S as also the people present
at the party belong to the upper middle class, that is, to the family of advocates
and aristocrats. We are told that “Miss Pushpa is coming/from very high family”.
It is this group that becomes the target of ridicule in the poem. It is about the
wealthy and privileged who nurtured hopes of bagging an opportunity abroad so
they could flaunt it and win admiration of others in India. Further, Pushpa T.S is
described in the poem as a meek submissive woman who is a picture of admiration
for the assumed male speaker. His references expose the conservative upper-
class society in India for whom a woman ever smiling, “cooking nicely” and
“never saying no” is an image of perfection and beauty. We are not told what
kind of a woman she is and what her thoughts and ideas are. We see her through
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Indian English Poetry the eyes of the judging speaker who represents a patriarchal outlook and tells us
what “good spirit” in a woman is and what bad is. Pushpa T.S., we are told, is
also a popular lady among the crowd, especially men. She remains frozen in the
narrative of the speaker who fixes her in a role and a type. Importantly, Ezekiel
exposes the male gaze through the speaker’s expressions where the woman is
observed minutely and unsparingly.

The irony in the poem comes from the fact that the speaker uses the structure and
idiosyncrasies specific to the indigenous languages of India while the spoken
language is actually alien. This misfit amuses the reader. For instance, the poet
calls Pushpa T.S. “sister” which is an Indian nomenclature, a way of addressing
a woman with respect. It seems the speaker has the vernacular phrases in mind
while the language used is English so that the poem appears to be a transliteration
into English. Another amusing aspect of the Indian English deployed liberally
by Ezekiel in the poem is the use of the gerund form of the verb popularly used
in Indian variations of English. Satire and irony are at the centre of this poem.

The poem brings into the question the identity and role of the English language.
This question had engaged writers who chose to write literary works in English
during the nationalist movement. In the post-Independence period, it appeared
pertinent to ask— What is India’s relation with the English Language? The
question is an uncomfortable one because we despised the colonial rule and the
colonizers, how could we then embrace their language and express our emotions
through it? Why should we do such a thing? Should we not have discarded the
English language along with the removal of the British from seat of power?
Language, however, runs deep in cultures. Once English had entered our lives,
mixed with the Indian culture, it continued to thrive. The result is what we see in
the poem “Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa T.S.”.In fact, Ezekiel made Indian
English the theme of another of his poem titled “A very Indian Poem in Indian
English”. In independent India, English continued to enjoy a superior position in
life. If one were to be seen as civilized and polished, one had to be a suave
English speaker since without it one felt incompetent and inferior. We do not
feel incapable if we do not know other languages. Why is that the case? This
mindset is an indicator of cultural hegemony (see glossary) that the English
language has over us. Not being able to speak in English became a stigma and it
continues to oppress the minds of Indian people till now. Ezekiel was able to
look at this obsession with the English language particularly among middle class
Indian people who remained culturally submissive to the colonial Language and
felt compelled to use it to assert their superiority.

However, this usage is very different from the poets’ use of Indian English for
their creative writing. Those who received western education abroad or at home
wrote with similar ease and poise as their counterparts in the west. This upper
middle-class intelligentsia spoke and wrote in English like their erstwhile masters.
They consciously inculcated the style and manner of westernized English. So,
the specimen of English that you witness in “Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa
T.S” and “A very Indian Poem in Indian English” is not how Ezekiel spoke or
wrote. It is how the large sections of Indian people who learnt the language or
were somewhat familiar with it used it in everyday life, as also those who wished
to prove their superiority by the fact that they knew English and would use only
English in Indian gatherings. Ezekiel creates an amusing picture of people
gathered to bid goodbye to a lady of their club who is enviously going abroad.
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The poet is at the same time satirical of this group in society that shows off its Nissim Ezekiel and Eunice de
Souza
knowledge of the English language and maintains an upper-class attitude while
in reality they make a complete fool of themselves. But fools before whom? The
poet and the likes of him who know the nuances of the language. While the poet
exposes the foolishness of this section of society that continues to obsess over
the English language and its usage, he also opens space for us to see that the
judging eye of those who can satirize this group laugh at them and mock their
Indianisms (see glossary), namely the westernized urban intelligentsia. M.K.
Naik is of the opinion that Ezekiel in such poems assumes an “easy superiority
expressing itself in surface irony as in his ‘Very Indian’ poems ‘in Indian English’,
in which the obvious linguistic howlers of Indian students are pilloried with
metropolitan snobbishness”(203-4). The poet, thus, adopts a patronizing attitude
towards those who are ill-equipped to use English. His surface level irony in the
treatment of the subject also betrays his own position as one who could never
fully accept his semi-Indian identity and ever remained in a state of self-alienation.
In one of his poems titled “Background, Casually” he wrote of the alienation felt
by his community—”my ancestors, among the castes, were aliens crushing seed
for bread”.

1.7 EZEKIEL’S STYLE AND APPROACH

Ezekiel wrote poems of two different kinds—the terse, meticulous and the lucid,
free. He painstakingly carried the themes in each poem to their logical end while
maintaining a kind of determination and focus while making the point. Ezekiel
was known for his use of subtle irony, particularly, the distant ironic stance he
could assume in the poem that turned from humorous to sardonic. However, he
maintained in poetry a formality of manner and paid great attention to rhyme
scheme and perfection in stanza forms. He was equally adept with the colloquial
style in poetry.

1.8 EUNICE DE SOUZA: AN OVERVIEW

Let’s now turn our attention to the other poet in the course, Eunice de Souza. She
is a woman writer from the Goan Catholic community who has the benefit of
having English as her first language and therefore successfully deploys the spoken
English idiom of her community. The reality she depicts through her poems is
starkly Indian. Her representations as also language carries a distinct Indian
flavour. Eunice de Souza(1940-2017) remained an active thinker till her last
days. She taught English literature for over thirty years at St. Xavier’s College in
Mumbai. She spent her childhood in Pune and graduated from the University of
Mumbai after which she went to the Marquette University, Wisconsin to pursue
her Masters. She came back to India and attained a PhD from the University of
Mumbai. Interestingly, when de Souza returned to India and applied for a teaching
position it was Nissim Ezekiel who interviewed her and dissuaded her from taking
the job, suggesting it would make her unhappy and this became a start to a long
standing friendship. De Souza through Ezekiel met several contemporary poets
including Kamala Das, Gieve Patel and Dom Moraes, among others. She engaged
with the themes of contemporary society in her poems and fictional pieces. Her
seminal poetry collections include Fix (1979), Women in Dutch Painting (1988),
Ways of Belonging: Selected Poems (1990), Selected and New Poems (1994),
and Learn from the Almond Leaf (2016). De Souza primarily known as a poet
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Indian English Poetry also wrote novellas in her later days such as, Dangerlok (2001) and Dev and
Simran (2003). Her poems revolve around the predicament of women in Indian
society, particularly when seen from the lens of a Christian family. Certainly, de
Souza doesn’t become the mouthpiece of Christian value system or tradition.
She critically looks at institutions of family, religion and marriage from a close
observant eye. For instance, her first collection Fix brings to the fore the
ambivalence the subject feels towards her parents. The stance is assertive and
feminist. De Souza spent most of her life in India and understood the pulse of the
times, the changing scenario particularly with respect to women. She saw the
change over decades where women came out into the public sphere, received
education and began going to work. This instilled new hope in her and gave her
a decided stance from where she could critique the social institutions working
necessarily against the interests of women. She evocatively expressed it in poetry.
Her style is serious and witty, seldom casual or flippant. There is focus and
discipline in her poems.

1.9 “BEQUEST” BY EUNICE DE SOUZA: A

READING
“Bequest,” taken from the collection Ways of Belonging: Selected Poems (1990)
is a projection of Christian values and their changing meaning in contemporary
society. Let us first read the poem—
Bequest
In every Catholic home there’s a picture
of Christ holding his bleeding heart
in his hand.
I used to think, ugh.
The only person with whom
I have not exchanged confidences
is my hairdresser.
Some recommend stern standards,
others say float along.
He says, take it as it comes,
meaning, of course, as he hands it out.
I wish I could be a
Wise Woman
smiling endlessly, vacuously
like a plastic flower,
saying Child, learn from me.
It’s time to perform an act of charity
to myself,
bequeath the heart, like a
spare kidney –
136 preferably to an enemy.
Although de Souza’s “Bequest” is on the theme of the oppressive environment Nissim Ezekiel and Eunice de
Souza
of a Christian home, the poem is different from her early poems such as “Catholic
Mother” that came out in 1979. While “Catholic Mother” juxtaposes the
judgmental Christian community against the silent woman figure, “Bequest”
brings into focus specifically the woman subject who has to fight many battles.
Bequest at one level brings out the predicament of a woman in contemporary
society and at another, lays bare the state of affairs around this subject, that is,
the way of life in a Christian family. These two themes are central in understanding
de Souza’s works. Most of her poems are about women who are strong and
determined and must deal with the pressures emanating from their surroundings.
In “Bequest,” too, she lays it down for us. The subject active as a figure in the
poem is sick of those who seem to control her life. She is not the typical Indian
woman submitting to authority, speaking less and observing decorum. On the
contrary, she is vocal about her thoughts and feelings and is certainly not the one
to compromise or accept the given. Those who follow the norms in society as
also those who uphold and ensure their upkeep “recommend” to her as “stern
standards, /others say float along” are not she would relate to. Both options are
unacceptable to her. Then comes the third voice in the poem, “He says, take it as
it comes, /meaning, of course, as he hands it out”. The male figure “he” represents
the patriarchal viewpoint who in the garb of “take it as it comes” actually means
take it as he likes it. Does the woman have a choice when so many voices work
to suppress the voice of the female subject who refuses to submit to the patriarchal
order? De Souza shows a sense of disgust for them and a spirit to fight them out.
The disgust that she experiences in the beginning of the poem when she speaks
about her reaction to seeing a picture of Christ holding his bleeding heart in his
hands and she thinks “ugh,” that gets connected with her abhorrence for the
upholders of tradition and patriarchy. This is evident particularly in the last
stanza when she says—
“It’s time to perform an act of charity
to myself,
bequeath the heart, like a
spare kidney –
preferably to an enemy”.
Why does the poet think that bequeathing her heart would be an act of charity?
Why does she think the heart should be treated as a spare kidney and why would
she prefer giving it to an enemy and not a friend?

It is a feminist poem in which the woman subject speaks her mind. Her poems
become stark because they hit out simultaneously at the religious and patriarchal
orders. She is irreverently vocal about her thoughts on both.

1.10 EUNICE DE SOUZA’S AESTHETIC

APPROACH
The poems of de Souza are in one sense personal and in another distant and
social. The poet becomes the subject of the poems and draws herself out of them.
She recounts the feelings of the subject by standing outside it. This sharpens the
observation shared with the reader. For this reason, her poems seldom appear
melodramatic or word-heavy. At a few places, they are confessional, but soon 137
Indian English Poetry the feminist in her wakes up and takes charge. This lends her grit and the urge to
resist.

To reiterate, de Souza’s poems are dramatic in nature for she portrays with words
vivid scenes from our surroundings that have a picturesque quality. In descriptions
she turns ironic—the hypocrisy of social discourses is brought to the centre and
the stance of the poet in the process assumes a clear image.

Since de Souza has both the eye of a critic and poet, she considers language a
key issue in writing. She makes it a subject of serious discussion. Ever self-
critical of her writing and her use of words de Souza believed in working hard on
her poems, editing them till they reached an aesthetic point. In one of her
interviews she outlined the importance of language in poetry by suggesting that,
‘language is what poetry is all about. It’s not about wearing your heart on your
sleeve, courage and all that. It is finally language. And if you forget that you are
not really a poet” (from Contemporary Indian Poetry in English, 118). Clearly
by placing emphasis on language, de Souza formulated a new aesthetic of poetry.
She has taken poetry out of the realms of pure passion, heart-felt emotions (or
what may be called the feminine elements in a poem). Ever conscious about the
use of language and its manifold meanings, de Souza is a craftswoman whose
emotions seldom supersede the central idea in a poem. For her the feeling which
is at the centre of a poem requires discipline of language. The poem according to
her is based on a feeling which is remembered and recreated. This feeling has to
be disciplined stringently. This constitutes the aesthetics of de Souza’s works.

1.11 EUNICE DE SOUZA AND THE FEMINIST

TREND IN INDIAN WRITING
Eunice De Souza contributed to the canon of women’s poetry in particular and to
the Indian feminist tradition in general by unequivocally pointing out the source
of female oppression. She was courageous enough to put in the dock religious
practices and social values that controlled women and strengthened the hold of
patriarchy in society. To call a spade a spade and to treat with contempt such
malpractices made her de Souza’s poems stand out among the rest.

The roots of Feminism in India may be traced to the mid-nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries with seminal works of Savitribai Phule (1831-1897)and
Tarabai Shinde (1850-1910)coming to the fore. Shinde’s Stree Purush Tulana
became a modern feminist text interrogating the prejudices of society necessarily
set against women. The national movement in India and the struggle for
independence brought women out of their homes and into the sphere of public
life. This added immensely to the growth of women’s movement. During the
Gandhian phase women became equal participants in life. The cause, however,
was focused on attaining freedom from the imperialist British rule. But as a
corollary, women began to express and assert themselves in the public sphere.
However, feminism as a systematic approach and a full-fledged movement in
India came up properly only in the latter half of the twentieth century when
women thinkers, theorists, social activists and writers took it upon themselves to
begin pushing for women’s cause in literature, culture and politics. These women
expressed opinions as also made claim on their rights. A whole section of women
emerged on the scene who took up the cause of women, and fought for their
equal status is country’s environment.
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There occurred a paradigm shift and a change of attitude that became visible in Nissim Ezekiel and Eunice de
Souza
women’s writings. One could identify a changing trend in writers such as Kamala
Das in the nineteen sixties who began to write about herself as an independent
subject with an identity of her own. Women’s writing of the 1960s and 70s was
often confessional, expression as it was of an anguished and disturbed subject.
This was replaced by a more self-assured feminist voice of the 1980s and 90s
that disregarded social validation, experimented with the literary form and probed
the vital aspects of life including gender. Eunice de Souza while incorporating
certain aspects of the confessional writing of the 60s and 70s, de Souza aligns
more with the new age feminists whose works are bold, incisive and self-critical.
The outer world and the conflicts of the inner world are treated with equal
detachment in her works. The engagement with the subject matter is personal
but the writer is ever conscious that the predicament is produced by society.

1.12 LET US SUM UP

You must have noted that the unit was divided into three distinct sections. The
first part was devoted to the development of Indian English writing in general
and poetry in particular. The second section focused on the poet Nissim Ezekiel
and his specific concerns. The third one brought to the centre the works of Eunice
de Souza and her feminist outlook. You may have noticed that de Souza, like
Ezekiel, was an urban western educated poet, but she speaks in the voice of the
oppressed, of the women of her community and is, therefore, able to depict in
her poems the realities of Indian ethos with precision. For de Souza, there is
little escape from patriarchal conventions for a woman. However, Ezekiel and
de Souza are both deft in their use of satire. They can effectively drive a point
home through satirical representation. We also note that their perspectives differ—
de Souza seldom turns philosophical, and Ezekiel successfully escapes from
personal anguish to make entry into the philosophical.

1.13 GLOSSARY
British Commonwealth : refers to the British Commonwealth of Nations,
a voluntary association whose members include
United Kingdom and its erstwhile colonies to
maintain goodwill and friendship among one
another and with the ex-colonizer. The British
monarch remains the symbolic head of this
association.

Cultural hegemony : domination through cultural and ideological

means. It refers to maintaining rule over a group
or country through its social institutions and
practices.

Indianism : suggests a distinct Indian way of using the English

language; a word or idiom that is characteristic
of Indian English.

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Indian English Poetry
1.14 QUESTIONS
1) Write a note on the growth and popularity of Indian English in the post
independence period.

2) What are the characteristic features of Indian English poetry? How is it

different from the romantic and nationalist poetry of the pre-independence
period?

3) What do you think is Ezekiel’s purpose in presenting to us the ‘indianisms’

in the poem “Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa T.S”?

4) Do you agree that Eunice de Souza’s poems are personal and yet socio-
political in nature? Give reasons for your answer.

1.15 REFERENCES
Ezekiel, Nissim. “A Poet’s Passage” Bombay Magazine, 1983

Hess, Linda. “Post-Independence Indian Poetry in English”. Quest. Vol. 49 Spring,

1966. pp28-38.

Naik, M.K. A History of Indian English Literature, Sahitya Akademi,1982.

Ramakrishnan, E. V. Indigenous Imaginaries: Literature, Region, Modernity.

New Delhi: Orient Blackswan, 2017.

“Eunice de Souza in conversation with Sindhu Menon”. Contemporary Indian

Poetry in English. Ed. Mohan Ramanan, Afeefa Banu, and Pramod Nayar. New
Delhi : Sahitya Akademi, 2010.

1.16 SUGGESTED READINGS

Anklesaria, Zerin. “Wit in the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel”. A Journal of Indian
Writing in English. Vol. 14, no.2. July, 1986.

Anagol, Padma. The Emergence of Feminism in India, 1850-1920. NY: Routledge,

2016.

King, Bruce. Modern Indian Poetry in English. New Delhi: Oxford, 1987.

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