Analyse critically Mahapatra's poem "A Rain of Rites".
Ans.A Rain of Rites, by Jayant Mahapatra (1976), is mainly concerned with the poet's relationship with his past who portrays scenes from contemporary Indian Society. The key poem of the volume 'A Rain of Rites' reminds readers about the tradition which binds Mahapatra with his past. In the title, "rain" is the symbol of wisdom, which works as an eye opener for every reader to apprehend reality. It also symbolises primitive innocence of human being. Rain is an all diffusive metaphor in Jayant Mahapatra's poetry. Rain not only binds man with the universe as a suggestive symbol of fertility, but also evokes his past and reminds him of the suffering he had faced in life. Analysis In this poem, Mahapatra uses symbols from his environment to articulate an inner space of feelings. For example, his symbols of 'rain', 'sky' and "cloud' very articulately express the poet's inner feelings which arise during solitude and silence. The poem suggests more than is said as it reveals areas of the mind unstructured by rational concepts and logic. The poem reflects the poet's question, which ends in uncertainty and defeat. The poem's lyric is of a troubled soul; of a weary and undefined unhappiness. Bruce king remarks, "The monsoon season, which provides symbols for A Rain of Rites is both a time of grey skies, disasters and depressions, and also a period of renewal, birth, regeneration, after the dry, stifling Indian summer." But the rains brings no renewal to the poet. In the poem, a contrast is made between the surprising moments when the sun shines through the clouds of the grey rain and the poet's lack of illumination and renewal:
"Sometime a rain comes, Slowly across the sky, that turns upon its grey cloud, breaking away into light Before it reaches its objective." In the second stanza, the speaker regrets, "The Rain I have known and traded all this life/is thrown like a kelp on the beach." He perhaps means to say that the experiences of the past he has known proved useless like a kelp on the beach'. He adds another simile to illustrate the same subtle point.
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