Analysis of the Poem

From
pristine ■■■■■■■ To Concrete Jungle
Green

From the beginning to the end of the poem,

one can observe that the entire poem is subjective and the poet only expresses his feelings
towards the chopping trees and
also talks about his father and grandmother. Through the character of his grandmother, Chitre
imparts his knowledge of Hindu religion with his readers. In one of his articles Hindu, Chitre
himself confesses that;

My own poetry is rather private and spiritually engaged with issues in the secular life
surrounding me. I regard my poetry as essentially autobiographical and historical. It describes
my engagement with persons and places, the progression
of time, death and loss, memory and perhaps a hope of liberation to which I cling (4, Jan 2009).

The central theme of the poem is uprootedness, the idea of leaving a family home. The
secondary theme is that of ecosystems and their destruction, specifically that of felling trees for
profit, in the name of progress. In the poem the two
themes are inextricably linked - the speaker moving home coincides with the tree being cut
down. The two are fused together. Chitre‟s father orders all the tenants to leave and to chop
down all the tress. The labours cut all the surrounding tress like sheoga, oufumber, the neem etc
but it is difficult to chop the huge banyan tree because it is very tall and huge in size.
As Chitre paints the picture of the tree:

"The banyan tree was three times as tall as our house

Its trunk had a circumference of fifty feet

Its scraggy aerial roots fell to the ground"

In the second stanza of the poem, Chitre confesses that the tree was so huge it took seven
days to chop and fifty men were at work to demolish it. At the same time, the poet expresses
his grief for the insects and birds who had lost their shelter with the demolition of the huge tree.
Humanity towards the living beings is seen in this stanza. In the last stanza of the poem, Chitre
goes on to describe how this tree was chopped and what he had felt when it was chopped;

"And then they came to its massive trunk

Fifty men with axes chopped and chopped

The great tree revealed its rings of two hundred years

 We watched in terror and fascination this slaughter"
Thus, The poet has two emotions - terror and fascination for the huge tree. The former based on
sadness and fear for the
future, the latter on the awesome sight of a massive tree come crashing to the ground, revealing
its rings and ancient history.

It is an autobiographical poem. It indicates Dilip Chitre's exploration of a time when he was

uprooted from Baroda to the city of what was then called Bombay, modern day
Mumbai. Therefore, the bunyan tree is a metaphor for his life, for the family's upheaval.

Reference:
From the first line the reader is informed that this decision was taken by the patriarch, the father,
and the energy which directly affects things is therefore is masculine. Andrew Spacey remarks
that in opposition to this masculine approach - antithetical - is that of the feminine, represented
in the family by the grandmother, a spokesperson for nature, for the sacred aura attached to the
remaining trees.

On another level, this poem conceives Nature as a Mother or a little girl or a devi. This tree is
a juncture where both humanitarian and religious meet. Nostalgia and memories take strong
roots. Therefore, the mechanism of "uprooting", to quote Gieve Patel out of the "earth-cave"
becomes a heart-wrenching affair. In a different poem by Gieve Patel, he said:
It takes much time to kill a tree,

"Not a simple jab of the knife

Will do it. It has grown

Slowly consuming the earth,"

French philosopher Michele Serres wrote,

Every epidermis defines a tattooed reality that evolves with time, time is a tactile mask that
builds historiated skin, and displays a particular history. It is visible: wear and tear; scars from
wound; calluses; wrinkles... Memory is inscribed there, why look elsewhere for it? And it is
invisible, the fluctuating traces of caresses, memories of silk, wool, velvet, rock, air, green...

Thus, like Tagore's titular protagonist of the short story বলাই/Balai, this poem builds up an
elemental connection between the felling tree and the leaving home by the poet. Leaving seems
like a detachment of that long formed umbilical cord of tradition, history, legacy, beliefs now
turned as myths, nostalgia and memories. To conclude we can say what Benedict Anderson
mentioned in one of his articles:
All profound changes in consciousness, by their very their very nature, bring with them
characteristic amnesias. Out of such oblivions, in specific historical circumstances, spring
narratives… The photograph… is only the most peremptory of a huge modern accumulation
of documentary evidence… which simultaneously records a certain apparent continuity
and emphasizes its loss from memory. Out of this estrangement comes a conception of
personhood, identity… which, because it cannot be “remembered”, must be narrated.

The poem stands as a cenotaph of such narration. Now the tree grows within the subconscious
of both the poet's as well as the reader's mind(s).

*** Next day, I am going to share possible MCQ from this text and this analysis is for your
in-depth understanding of the text. I have taught the entire poem today (22. 01. 2021) already.
This is like a class-transcription for those who have missed the class for some reason. Next day,
we would be solving Textual Grammar .***