Question- Expalin with reference to the context any two of the following passeges.

Answer -

1.

Really what keeps us apart
at the end of years is unshared childhood.
You cannot, for instance, meet my father.
He is some years dead. Neither can I meet Yours,
he has lately lost his temper
and mellowed.

Reference and Context : These are the opening lines of the poem called 'Love Poem for a Wife' written by A.K. Ramanujan. He is the most honourable Poet of Indian English poetry in his Love Poem for a Wife', Ramanujan Imagines three generations of women mother/wife and daughter.

Here the poet appears in a reminiscent mood. He broads over the emotional allenation with his wife, with whom he was married long ago. According to him, The main cause of alienation is that they have not shared experience of their childhood.

Explanation : In these lines, the poet express his feelings for his wife who does not live with him long time. He tells the reason for his alienation. He says that many years have passed of their married life, yet there is a kind of unfamiliarily between them. This alienation is related to their mental state. There is still monotony in their relationship. According to him, the main cause of this alienation is that they have not shared the experience of their childhood. That's why they do not have much knowledge about each other's bygone life because the source of knowing each other's background are no more. Further he tells about his father who is dead. So she can not meet him. And he also can not meet wife's father who was initially ill-tempered, but now has softened in his temper.

Comments :
1. Use of simple and comprehensive language.
2. These lines show the alienation of the poet with his wife.

2.

Of the seven crazy aunts.
You begin to recognize me.
as I pass from ghost to real
and back again in the albums
of family rumours, in brother's
anecdotes of how noisily father bathed.

Reference : As above

Context : In these lines, the poet narrates various incidents about the early years of his married life. He reminisc the evenings when a number of their cousins met together and kept gossiping till midnight.

Explanation : Here the poet remembers his childhood, evenings which is enjoyed by him with the seven crazy aunts. During theie gossiping till midnight, they shipped brandy and chewed cashew-nuts. They could talk freely as their elders were not present. Their grandparents were already dead. There was none to interfere their liberty. At these meetings, the poet's wife would become curious to know the details of her husband's past life while the poet envied her wife's childhood because she used to enjoy dog rides. He could not tolerate the invented stories of this wife's seven crazy aunts. He was sorry as he could not share these thrilling experiences with her. She wanted to know how the poet looked in his childhood from the family album and from the anecdotes told to her by the members of his family. The poet then comes to the present and remember how she and her brother James started a dragout fight regarding the location of a bathroom in their grandfather's house in Alleppey.

Comment :
1. Simple and comprehensive language
2. Use of wit and irony.

3.

And road-maps of the united states
that happened
To flap in the other room
In a midnight wind: you wagered
Heirlooms and husband's earnings on what
the uncle in Kuwait would say about
the bathroom and the well, and
the dying, by now dead.

Reference : As above

Context and Explanation : Here the poet comes out from his contemplation mood and thinks of his wife who has not brought even a bit of change in her. She has maintained the same nature by now. Further the poet narrates an incident which happened in Chicago. Only two weeks ago, in Chicago, she and her brother James had started quarrelling about where the bathroom was situated in the north or the south of the well next to the jackfruit tree. The poet and Jame's wife did not interfere in their argument and quarrel. They were stood aside in the room and were only watching their proceeding quarrel.

Later on his wife and James sat on the floor of the room and started sketcting of their grandfather's house. They wanted to locate the right place of bathroom in their map. They drew the sketch on the newspapers, on the backs of envelopes and on the maps of the roads of United States, whatever they got, they started drawing sketch. They also decided upon a wager on the right location of bathroom. The poet's wife decided to appoint her brother the heir of her husband's total earnings if proved wrong and her brother would appoint her the heir of his total property. They left the rest matter for their uncle who lived in Kuwait.

Comment :
1. Simple, elegant and impressive language.
2. Use of humour, wit and irony.

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