RTC on the poem WIND by Subramania Bharati..... Class 9; CBSE; Beehive.....
Answers
The theme of this poem is that even when you face a lot of hardships and obstacles in life, you should never give up, instead you should befriend those obstacles. Just like the poet, who tries to befriend his hardship, the wind so that it may help him instead of harming him. The poet wrote this poem to encourage people towards the bright side of any problem. He wants us to know that even if life is full of challenges there is a way to turn them into our weapon.
Answer:
Wind, come softly.
Don’t break the shutters of the windows.
Don’t scatter the papers.
Don’t throw down the books on the shelf.
In these lines, the poet directly talks to the wind. In fact, he makes an entreaty to the wind. He asks the wind not to break down the shutters of the windows. The shutters are the only thing that separate man from the stormy environment outside, so in a way the poet is asking the wind for protection. He also asks the wind not to scatter the papers in his room, or to throw down the books from his bookshelves. It is pertinent for him to care about papers and books, and for them to be the first things in his room that he doesn’t want disorganized, because he is a writer. Perhaps some of these papers also contain drafts of poems like this one, hence they are very important to him, and he cannot afford to lose them.
Lines 5-7:
There, look what you did – you threw them all down.
You tore the pages of the books.
You brought rain again.
In these lines, the poet continues speaking to the wind. However, the tone he now uses to address the wind has changed from the tone he had been using in the first four lines of the poem. Here he takes on an accusatory tone. He gestures towards the mess in his room, and tells the wind that it is he who is responsible for it. He shows the wind how he has thrown all the books down from the bookshelves with his force, and torn pages out of those books as well. However, the pet does not restrict his vision only to the inside of his house. Casting his gaze outside, he also accuses the wing of having brought a bout of rainfall with himself while approaching the poet’s house.
Lines 8-12:
You’re very clever at poking fun at weaklings.
Frail crumbling houses, crumbling doors, crumbling rafters,
crumbling wood, crumbling bodies, crumbling lives,
crumbling hearts –
the wind god winnows and crushes them all.
In these lines, the poet keeps speaking to the wind. Now his tone has once again undergone a change. While it is still accusatory, it has also become sober to some extent. The poet tells the wind that he makes mischief whenever he comes face to face with anyone who is too meek and mild to protest against his actions. The wind can tear down the doors, the rafters, or entire wooden houses altogether. This is the wind’s overt action – leaving people without a roof over their heads, or walls to keep them sheltered from the harsh world outside. However, the wind also has a covert action. To understand what the poet is talking about at this point you can think back to how many Indian vernacular languages have a phrase about the wind blowing over someone’s life and leaving a trail of disasters behind. What such an idiom implies is that the troubles we face in life come as suddenly as the wind, and also leave in the same sudden way. Hinting at this, the poet says that the wind can tear down weak bodies, and fragile hearts. That is, difficulties in life can lead to a loss of hope, as well as a loss of life. Whether such things will happen or not is all up to the wind god, says the poet.
Lines 13-15:
He won’t do what you tell him.
So, come, let’s build strong homes,
Let’s join the doors firmly.
In these lines, the poet stops speaking to the wind, and starts speaking to his readers. He tells his readers that the wind does not listen to anybody, and that his actions are governed by him alone. Therefore, we cannot escape the ill effects of the wind by appealing to the wind like he has been doing. Instead, we should build our homes on a strong foundation, and ensure that our doors cannot be easily penetrated in order to save ourselves from the wind.
Lines 16-18:
Practise to firm the body.
Make the heart steadfast.
Do this, and the wind will be friends with us.
In these lines, the poet outlines some other ways in which his readers can save themselves from the wind. He says that we must make ourselves strong, both physically and mentally. We must train our bodies and our hearts to combat against and resist the ill effects of the wind. If we are able to do this, then the poet thinks that we will no longer consider the wind an enemy. Instead the wind will invite us to become his friend, and we will be able to fearlessly accept his invitation.
Lines 19-20:
The wind blows out weak fires.
He makes strong fires roar and flourish.
In these lines, the poet describes how the wind has both bad effects and good effects. In order to elucidate on the bad effects of the wind, he shows how the wind can blow out a fire if it is glowing with a weak force. However, if the fire is burning strongly, then the wind will not blow it out, but make it fiercer. Thus the wind can nurture that which is already strong.