Bohemian Brouhaha

CENTRAL IDEA: The poem, “The Sick Rose”, portrays in subtle imagery Blake’s mystical idea about innocence and experience. Beauty is sick at the core; vulnerability is the essence of innocence. The path from ignorance and bliss to knowledge and satiety is inevitably a happy marriage -“bed of crimson joy”; yet, it yields destruction or loss predestined. Ironically, the rose, the cynosure, enjoys the rendezvous without being aware of the sickness that characterises it. This visionary idea that Blake represents involves the predicament of feminine beauty in human analogy in the guise of Shakespeare as he makes Hamlet blurt out, ‘Frailty, thy name is woman’!    TITLE: The poem is the point of view of a rose. The rose is a thing of beauty. It is the cynosure that attracts perils. A worm takes an opportune moment to prey on the ‘crimson’ boudoir of the rose. The rose, ironically, seems to be enjoying the passionate love-making of its predator, whose ‘dark’ love is a secret ...

THE EYES HAVE IT [Characters] NATHU LAMA: a man in his late twenties. REVATI: A woman in her early twenties. A MAN: Middle-aged, Revati’s father. A WOMAN: Middle-aged, Revati’s mother. AUNT: Revati’s aunt. A TRAVELLER: A young passenger. [Setting] The drama is set on a railway platform as well as in the compartment of the train. The first scene begins outside the train which is about to depart soon. Porters and a few passengers are seen on the platform. With the change of the scene the inside of the train compartment is visible. [The premise] While journeying by a train a young blind traveller, who is fond of spending leisure time by playing the role of a man who is not blind, comes across a young lady, his co-passenger. He persuasively gets intimated with the lady and starts playing the game. After a short journey the lady alights at her destination. The man assumes that he has played the role well since, he thinks, the lady ha...

ON JIMMY VALENTINE:  Jimmy Valentine is introduced into the story with the warden declaring him as “not a bad fellow at heart”. A Good Samaritan stems forth from Jimmy as he is said to have many friends both inside and outside the gaol. Even the governor relents and curtails his sentence period. Not only does he suppress his wrongdoings to policemen but he also makes his dear friend aloof from his usual business. He emerges out as straightforward in principle. He craves for the ‘milky’ life as he never touches “hard drink”. His handmade tools vouchsafe his expertise and make him unique among burglars. Moreover, he is capable of being moved deeply by love. He does possess attitude, elegance and mettle; he does exude all of them. He longs love and respectable life, and he risks them, unconditionally, for others. To aver, in brief, Jimmy never fails. Indeed, he cannot. ON BEN PRICE:  Ben Price is a rightful, law-abiding detective. He is on a mission to arrest Jimmy Valentine. He k...

1.     I am a man : I am a mere human being (with limited capabilities, compared to all the other mighty phenomena of the universe). 2.     Little do I last : I do not last for long. (My individual existence is a short one). 3.     And the night is enormous : Contrastingly, the short span of “my” life cannot grasp the enormity of existence. Here “night” may be “the unknown” to the poet; it also might signify the abysmal “darkness” that encompasses the universe.  4.     But I look up : But, I do possess this manly prowess to shed the inhibitions of my being a little phenomenon, and the sheer quest of my soul leads me look up beyond that territory (both physical and psychological) where man is supposed to confine himself. 5.     The stars write : The celestial bodies compose – the world and its scheme of workings. (As I muster courage and “look up”, I find how the design of the universe is being writ...