Blessing by Imitaz Dharkar

Introduction:
Blessing by Imtiaz Dharker is a poem with four stanzas that highlights the “blessing” of water in people’s lives.
Throughout his poem he focuses on the importance of the blessing, because of the reason that a blessing is more
valued when it is received after great longing and prayers. Dharker stresses that although a community of people are
suffering and find the basic staples of life as a blessing, they enjoy it when they finally receive this blessing, even
when they could use many more to make life more manageable. The full poem can be read here.

Summary Stanza Wise.

First Stanza
The first stanza of Dharker’s poem is a couplet. This is an important point to notice because it conveys the
fundamental and concentrated message of deficiency to the reader. Dharker is initiating the poem by
grabbing the reader’s attention to communicate an essential message: people are desperately suffering
because “there is never enough water”. He starts this poem titled Blessing by demonstrating the absence
of it. This is a powerful strategy as it reveals the importance of the blessing before the reader is even aware
of what it could be. The first line of this couplet mentions “the skin cracking”, skin is one of the most
important organs of the body, and to have it crack implies pain, discomfort, abnormality and lack of care.
Right away, the reader understands that the subject of the poem is an imperative one to cause quite the
damage and deficiency if absent. The second line exposes that the reason of the cracked skin is the fact
that there isn’t enough water; which reveals that there is not just shortage of the blessing, but rather,
there is a permanent lack of water which in turn has caused severe damage to the skin since there
is never enough. The skin here could represent many things but the most obvious is the human body or
population. Describing the skin cracking like a “pod” is suggesting that the humans suffering is breaking
because of the deficiency of this main source of life: water, which is now being looked at as a blessing.

Second Stanza
The second stanza begins with the word imagine; by instructing the reader to imagine, Dharker is trying to
guide the thought process of the reader as he discusses the importance of the “blessing”. Since he has
already mentioned the severe lack of water, the first line of this stanza is quite telling. Just by the presence
of the word “imagine” the reader expects to come into contact with something big, however, Dharker
proceeds by saying “the drip of it”. By doing this, he has created a very dramatic effect for just one line.
The emphasis of the “drip” of water reminds the reader that the ruthless absence of the blessing of water
is so intense that you would have to imagine even just a drip of it. Even a “drip” calls for the use of
imagination, that is how extreme the situation is. Line four of the poem continues to emphasize the use of
the reader’s imagination to access a “small splash” of this water. By moving from the drip to a splash,
Dharker is emphasizing, in slow motion the dramatic effect of a simple drop of water. Through focusing on
just a tiny drop instead of a large body of water Dharker is bringing attention to the severe dehydration
that people are facing; Moreover, underlining the notion that when there is a shortage of something, even
the most common of things, the value of it undeniably increases. In line five Dharker give emphasis to the
fact that the splash of water is in a tin mug; this is significant because an empty tin mug would cause a
louder echo, drawing attention to the reality of how empty it is. Line six continues to accentuate the
scarcity of water by claiming that the ordinary drip of water in a tin mug is equivalent to “the voice of a
kindly god”; water is as much a blessing to the people who are desperately in need of it as the blessing of
hope a kind god gives to those who have lost everything.

Third Stanza
This third stanza is the longest in the poem, mainly because it discusses the abundance of
the blessing instead of the lack of it. It is significant that the stanza discusses abundance yet starts off with
the word “sometimes” because it communicates to the reader that the case of the blessing being
showered upon the people is a merely on occasion. Line seven carries on depicting “a sudden rush”; after
the imagery of a single drop echoing in a tin can the vision of a sudden rush is refreshing. Line eight
describes a public pipe bursting, this is important since it involves the community which the reader
assumed was suffering because of their skin cracking. Illustrating a gush of water that bursts the
community pipes the reader realizes; this is where the blessing finally steps in the picture. By having the
first two stanzas focus on the lack of the blessing (water) and portraying the consequences of its
deficiency, the reader thoroughly understands why the water is such a blessing and appreciates its arrival
in this stanza. Line nine describes how intense the water or blessing is when it finally arrives;
demonstrating the notion that when it rains it pours, literally in this case. Lines ten and eleven continue
describe the ferocity of the water as it “roars” calling attention to the fact that it has finally arrived. The
following few lines paint a picture of a flock of people made up of all ages running out of their “huts” with
“pots” and “plastic buckets” to collect the blessing that they had been praying for. Dharker heavily implies
that they had been praying for this blessing by calling the gathering of people a “congregation”. The final
line of this stanza contains two words: “frantic hands”; here Dharker is providing such elaborate and
specific detail to connect the reader to the characters as they become nearly hysterical due to the miracle
of witnessing such a blessing after so much anguish.

Fourth Stanza
The finishing stanza of the poem concludes with the depiction of joy whilst maintaining the undertones of
suffering to remind the reader that the blessing truly was a blessing for these people. The stanza begins
with the image of “naked children” to underline the poverty and hardship the lack of water had caused; It
also implies that the community is lacking other blessings too (wealth). Line nineteen begins with the word
“screaming” again suggesting misery and affliction but implying happiness as the line continues towards
the positive light of “the liquid sun”. “liquid sun” here could mean two things, first, it could be that this is a
metaphor of the water they are rejoicing in, for the reason that the sun is a crucial necessity of life that
signifies a new beginning and which is exactly what this eruption of water was for them, a necessity that
signified the new beginning of life with the blessing of water. Secondly, it could mean that they were
dancing and screaming in the water that was reflecting the sun, turning it into a “liquid sun”. Line twenty
paints an interesting picture “their highlights polished to perfection”, entailing that the main parts of their
bodies (“their highlights”) were being bathed, washed and cleansed perfectly in this rush of water which
was washing away their distress. The word blessing, which holds high importance as it is the title of the
poem is finally mentioned in the final two lines of the poem. Dharker is reminding the reader at the end of
this poem that it is important to remember that water is a true blessing for these people and this
community because they were deprived of it, and by concluding the poem with the word “small bones” he
stresses the notion that they are not rid of all their problems as they seem to be lacking in proper
nourishment as well. By ending in this manner, he is bringing the reader’s attention to the fact that even if
the community has received this one blessingof water, they are in need of many more.