WIND
Written by the Tamil poet Subramania Bharati and translated by A. K. Ramanujan
Summary .. Wind is a vital component of Mother Nature. It is very powerful and can be utterly destructive for human beings and their assets. It can cause mammoth devastation to our lives, bodies, homes, and farmlands. The best wway to meet this giant force of nature is to condition our body and mind to protect ourselves from its vagaries. We have to make our body and mind robust and tough. In the same way, we can build strong buildings, dams, roads and ports etc. to remain unscathed after brief spells of winds blowing with deadly force. Since wind brings in rain that we need for our very existence, we can befriend wind by diligently strengthening our bodies and the infrastructure we build around us. Then, we will revere wind as God’s gift instead of cursing it as devil.
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Thinking about the Poem
1. What are the things the wind does in the first stanza?
Answer .. The wind breaks shutters, scatters the pzapers, freys the books and throws them off the book shelf. It unleashes rains causing temporary difficulties to the poor, vulnerable people.
2. Have you seen anybody winnow grain at home or in a paddy field? What is the word in your language for winnowing? What do people use for winnowing?
(Give the words in your language, if you know them.)
Answer .. No, I was born and brought up in an urban setting. So, I have no idea of ‘winnowing’.
3. What does the poet say the wind god winnows?
Answer .. The wind acting according to God’s wish winnows the grains, though in a harsh and crushing manner.
4. What should we do to make friends with the wind?
Anxswer .. We need to condition our mind and body to remain unruffled by the wind’s brutal force. We need to build our houses sufficiently strongly to suffer minimal damage by the wild wind’s force.
5. What do the last four lines of the poem mean to you?
Answer .. The wind wipes out the small fires and turns the bigger ones to infernos. We need to recognise its benign contribition to life on earth and befriend it.
———————————–To be continued————-