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B.A English Literature
[1st Year, 2nd Semester]
Core Paper IV: INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH
UNIT 1: Poetry
1.3. “Night of the
Scorpion” by Nissim Ezekiel
I remember the
night my mother
was stung by a
scorpion. Ten hours
of steady rain had
driven him
to crawl beneath a
sack of rice.
Parting with his
poison - flash
of diabolic tail in
the dark room -
he risked the rain
again.
The peasants came
like swarms of flies
and buzzed the name
of God a hundred times
to paralyse the
Evil One.
With candles and
with lanterns
throwing giant
scorpion shadows
on the mud-baked
walls
they searched for
him: he was not found.
They clicked their
tongues.
With every movement that the scorpion made his poison moved in
Mother's blood, they said.
May he sit still,
they said
May the sins of
your previous birth
be burned away
tonight, they said.
May your suffering
decrease
the misfortunes of
your next birth, they said.
May the sum of all
evil
balanced in this
unreal world
against the sum of
good
become diminished
by your pain.
May the poison
purify your flesh
of desire, and your
spirit of ambition,
they said, and they
sat around
on the floor with
my mother in the centre,
the peace of
understanding on each face.
More candles, more
lanterns, more neighbours,
more insects, and
the endless rain.
My mother twisted
through and through,
groaning on a mat.
My father, sceptic,
rationalist,
trying every curse
and blessing,
powder, mixture,
herb and hybrid.
He even poured a
little paraffin
upon the bitten toe
and put a match to it.
I watched the flame
feeding on my mother.
I watched the holy
man perform his rites to tame the poison with an incantation.
After twenty hours
it lost its sting.
My mother only said
Thank God the
scorpion picked on me
And spared my children.
About Poet:
Nissim Ezekiel is a famous poet of in the Indian History. He was
born in the year 1924. He is an actor, playwright, poet, editor and critic. He
died in the year 2004.
Ezekiel’s first book, The Bad Day, appeared in 1952. He published
another volume of poems, The Deadly Man in 1960. After working as an
advertising copywriter and general manager of a picture frame company
(1954–59), he co-founded the literary monthly Jumpo, in 1961. He became art
critic of The Names of India (1964–66) and edited Poetry India (1966–67). From
1961 to 1972, he headed the English department of Mithibai College, Bombay. The
Exact Name, his fifth book of poetry was published in 1965. During this period
he held short-term tenure as visiting professor at University of Leeds (1964)
and University of Pondicherry (1967).
In 1967, while in America, he experimented with LSD. In 1969, Writers Workshop, Kozhikode published his The Damn Plays. A year later, he presented an art series of ten programmes for Indian television. In 1976, he translated Jawarharlal Nehru poetry from Marathi, in collaboration with VrindaNabar, and co-edited a fiction and poetry anthology. His poem The Night of the Scorpion is used as study material in Indian and Columbian schools. Ezekiel also penned poems in ‘Indian English’ like the one based on instruction boards in his favourite Irani café.
His works like The Unfinished Man, The Exact Man, Hymns In Darkness are famous among all. His works exhibit an insight into the hearts of the readers. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1983 for his Poetry collection, “Latter- Day Psalms”, by the Sahitya Akademi, India’s National Academy of Letters.
About Poem:
Night of the Scorpion published in The
Exact Name, 1965, is one of the finest poems of Nissim Ezekiel and has been
universally admired, for its admirable depiction of a common Indian situation,
for its vivid and forceful imagery, for its bringing together of opposites, for
its ironic contrasts, and for the warmth of human love and affection. It shows
that Ezekiel is a very Indian poet, rooted in the Indian soil, and acutely
aware of the common human situations of day to day Indian life.
Summary:
Night of the Scorpion poignantly describes the selfless love of a mother who, even after suffering the pain of a scorpion bite and having narrowly escaped death, feels grateful that her children have been spared.
The poet says that he distinctly remembers the night when his mother was stung by a scorpion. It had been raining incessantly for ten hours and excessive rainfall forced the scorpion to take shelter under a bag of rice. All of a sudden, the scorpion stung his mother quickly and left its poison in her body. It instinctively fled the spot and went away into the rains.
Knowing of the incident, a large number of village people, mostly
peasants, thronged the poet’s home. They all started praying to God to spare
her life. In order to stop the scorpion from moving, they searched for it with
lanterns and candles. Their shadows were formed on the walls which were
scorpion-like. The poet ironically suggests that human beings are more
dangerous than scorpions - their shadows look like scorpions, only much bigger.
After all their efforts, the evil scorpion was not to be seen anywhere. They
all showed great sympathy for the mother and said that with every movement of
the scorpion, the poison spread in mother’s blood. It shows that the peasants
were very superstitious and did not have any knowledge as to how scorpion bite
can be cured. They prayed that the scorpion should not move. They wished that
the mother’s excruciating pain and suffering should wash away the sins of her
previous birth and diminish the grievances of the next birth. The peasants
believe that there is nearly as much evil in this world as there is good. The
suffering of the poet’s mother would destroy a part of that evil. So evil would
become less and there would be more good than evil in balance. Here, the
peasants raise the fundamental issue regarding the nature of reality and roles
of good and evil in life.
They all prayed that the suffering caused by poison should purify
her from worldly desires and ambitions. They sat around the mother with the calmness
of mind that comes from knowing the nature of things and accepting whatever is
destined to happen. This is the attitude which is deeply rooted in Indian
ethos.
The poet’s mother rolled and writhed on the floor due to
unbearable pain. His father, who was a reasonable man, tried every reasonable
or unreasonable remedy. Some were good while some were harmful - parrafin was
poured on her bitten toe and it was burnt. Even the holy man tried to control
the poison with his magic words.
After some twenty hours, the effect of poison was minimized. On
getting cured, the mother woke up and told “Thank God, the Scorpion picked on
me and spared my children”, that the scorpion had stung her and her children
were spared.
Thus, the poem reflects the life of the simple village people,
their beliefs and superstitions, their helplessness, and their surrender to the
powers of nature and of God. The poet concludes the poem with the strong love
of mother. The poem shows the uncontrollable affection and care of the mother.
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