Blessing by Imtiaz Dharkare

Imtiaz Dharker was born in 1954 in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan to Pakistani parents.  She is a Pakistan born British poet.  She has received the Queen’s Gold medal for her English poetry. She married Simon Powell, the founder of the organization Poetry Live.  She describes herself as a “Scottish Muslim Calvinist” adopted by India and married into Wales.  Her daughter Ayesha Dharker is an actress in international films. 

Dharker has written five books of poetry Purdah (1989), Postcards from God (1997), I speak for the Devil (2001), The Terrorist at my Table (2006), Leaving Fingerprints (2009) and Over the Moon (2014) (all self-illustrated).   She is seen as one of the most inspirational contemporary poets. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2011.  In 2012 she was nominated a Parnassus Poet at the Festival of the World.  She made her first appearance on the popular BBC Radio in July 2015 and gave about growing up in Glasgow and her decision to leave her and elope to India and her second marriage.

The poem

The skin cracks like a pod.
There never is enough water.

Imagine the drip of it,
the small splash, echo
in a tin mug,
the voice of a kindly god.

Sometimes, the sudden rush
of fortune. The municipal pipe bursts,
silver crashes to the ground
and the flow has found
a roar of tongues. From the huts,                   
a congregation : every man woman
child for streets around
butts in, with pots,
brass, copper, aluminium,                            

plastic buckets,
frantic hands,

and naked children
screaming in the liquid sun,
their highlights polished to perfection,
flashing light,
as the blessing sings
over their small bones.

Short summary of the poem

 Blessing is a simple poem with a great message.  It pictures the hardest life of a  slum on the outskirt of Mumbai in India and the jubilant reaction of the poor children who come to enjoy and to drink water when a pipe bursts and the water splashes all over.

 Critical Analysis of the Poem

 Oxymoron:

 Stanza 1                                                                           

 “The skin cracks like a pod.          
There never is enough water”

The first stanza is written in couplet.  It refers to a simple daily scene.  The climate is very scorching and kills the human skin.  It bakes the people and they suffer without water.  “There is never enough water” the title Blessing is very contradictory as the readers could feel the absence of blessing.   “The skin cracking”, the poet describes the condition of the pain and lack of care of their skin due to poverty and lack of enough water.  This causes severe damage to their skin as there is no water.   “Pod” refers to the sufferings of the humans because of scarcity of water which is the basic source of life.  Water is looked as a great Blessing to the people who suffer for their basic needs.  The life of the slum people is very hard and well brought out in the first stanza.

 Stanza 2

“The small splash, echo
in a tin mug,
the voice of a kindly god”

 The second stanza instructs the readers to imagine water dripping into a cup and tiny splash sounds like the voice of kind god. One can feel the thirst of the children.  The poet wants to emphasize the importance of water and it is a very precious and rarest thing and cannot be wasted under any situation.  The “echo” refers that the mug is empty and the person who is holding it is a very poor person belong to a slum. Empty mug can cause a louder sound ever for a tiny drop of water. Even the tiny drop of water would make them happy.  They are dry and longing to quench their thirst as they are like cracked walls. The poet personifies the splash of the water to the voice of a kind god.  This explains the precious value of the water.  It is divine and part of god which makes the water more special.  The word “tiny” makes the readers to feel the severe dehydration of the people. The voice of the god is nothing but water which is a blessing to the people who are in need of it.

 Stanza 3

“Sometimes, the sudden rush
of fortune. The municipal pipe bursts”……

This third stanza is quite a long one which describes the abundance of the blessing.

It starts with “sometimes” because the poet wants to understand the reality of the nature in certain cases the blessing is showered upon people occasionally. The poet brings out the lack of responsibility of the municipal community who involves in fixing the pipe lines for the public. The pipe bursts due to some cracks in it.  It can be assumed that the maintenance of the public property is very poor but the gush of water that bursts the pipes is a welcoming incident for those who are suffering without water.  The blessing comes in abundance and it is pouring.

 

“From the huts,
a congregation : every man woman
child for streets around
butts in, with pots,                                  

 

These lines describes and paints a beautiful scene of the people of all ages come out with pots and plastic buckets to collect the blessing that they have been waiting for so long. “Congregation” implies they are praying to the water god as one family for the blessing.  They all become nearly hysterical due to this miraculous blessing after so much suffering and pain.  The water has been seen as a metal silver which meet the tongues of people who are roaring with thirst.

  

Stanza 4

and naked children
screaming in the liquid sun,
their highlights polished to perfection,
flashing light,
as the blessing sings
over their small bones.                

The final stanza of the poem describes the joy of the people.  It starts with the “naked children” refers to their poverty and hardship of their life.  Lack of wealth and health and the basic need of natural resources have hammered them to this nakedness.  “Screaming” pictures their joy the water has brought them. “The liquid sun” is metaphor of the water, may be the sun shines in the gushing water, the sun is a first energy resource for the flow of life on earth.  It shows the new beginning along with the blessing of the water. “Their highlights polished to perfection”  the poet paints a beautiful natural picture that they are being bathed, washed and cleansed in this rush of water. The water washes away all their dirt and anguish.  

 Literary Devices

Alliteration: Words beginning with the same sound.

Ex: small splash…few has found. Screaming in the liquid sun…polished to perfection.

 Assonance:

When words close together in a line have similar sounding vowel.     

Imagine the drip of it…. In tin…. sudden

Rash…. fortune…The municipal…...tongues.

 Enjambment:

If there is no punctuation at the end of line and it runs straight into the next maintaining the sense.

Ex: Echo/in a tin mug

Rush/of fortune

Metaphor:

a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action to which it is not literally applicable.

Voice of a kindly god is a Metaphor for the echo of the drip in the mug.

Silver crash to the ground…is a Metaphor for the water. Silver is both valuables as precious metal and is also a color.

Contradictory terms.

Ex: liquid sun. – suggests the sun is a fluid, is watery.

 Personification:

Non-human object given human trails

Ex: The voice of a kindly god

The flow has found

Roar of tongues.

 Similes:

The first line compares the skin to a pod 

The skin cracks like a pod

 Finally the blessing sings over them. What they need is flowing in front of them.  “Small bones” refers that still they need to get rid of their poverty.  They lack nourishment and they are in need of good health and many more.  The voice of the god is now singing and blessing all well in Dharavi.

Thank you.