Critical Appreciation of ‘Of Mothers, among other things’ – A.K. Ramanujan

Introduction

A.K. Ramanujan was one of the greats of modern Indian poetry. He is a linguist, poet, dramatist, translator etc. His poetry deals with Indian culture, human relationships, Identity etc. His poem ‘Of Mother’s, among other things’ belongs to his collection ‘Relations’ published in 1971. This poem poignantly describes how a mother sacrifices and struggles throughout his life for her children.

Central Idea

Poem is centralized on role of mother. How she sacrifices and faces all sorts of pain and problems for her children. Poet while characterizing his own mother indicates towards all mothers of the Earth. He has expressed his surprise and sorrow at the old age of his mother. His sorrow is although personal but creates empathy in hearts of all readers as it is related to everyone’s’ life.

Themes

1. Motherhood – Motherhood is certainly the most compassionate role of any creature. Poet has pictured that compassion in his mother who from young age to middle and old age. His mother used to run through rain to handle him in cradle. It means the mother was tackling all hurdles in life to comfort her child. She even got her hand crippled for safety of her child. Even during old age she was working in kitchen despite crippled and old body. This shows the love and compassion of a mother for his children.
2. Guilt and Sorrow – Poem has theme of guilt and Sorrow, when at the end poet saw his mother bending and flexing her four fingers -‘one got crippled’-to pick a grain of rice from kitchen floor he is dumbstruck on sacrifices his mother did for him and he might haven’t able to give her due comfort in life as she is still working in the kitchen. Hence place of mother is not elevated to higher level than ‘other things’ in life.

Figure of Speech

1. Metaphor – ‘Silk and white petal’ is a metaphor for youth and beauty, ‘rain’ for troubles in life, ‘talon’ for mother’s hands.
2. Alliteration – ‘My mother’s, ‘tree tasselled’, ‘her hands’ etc. have repetition of consonant sounds at the starting of words. Hence these are examples of alliteration.
3. Transferred Epithet – In ‘crying cradle’ it is not cradle which is crying but it’s the child. Hence meaning of crying is shifted to child from cradle. Hence it is called as transferred epithet.
4. Sibilance – In line ‘still sensible fingers slowly flex’ has repetition of /sss/ sound creating hissing sound. Hence it’s called sibilance.

Post Modernism

Poem is a brilliant example of a post modern work. A post modern work has ‘randomness’ i.e. no absolute meaning, ‘playfulness’ (usage of irony, black humour, word play etc.), metafiction (boundary between fictional and real world is blurred), intertextuality (reference of other texts in form of allusions, parody etc. to interpret a text) and fragmentation ( when temporal boundaries are broken, changing of setting frequently, collage style form is used). Poem has randomness as it’s many lines can be interpreted in multiple ways. Playfulness is quite visible in various metaphors and ambiguous phrases. Poem has continuous changing of setting and time as youth, middle and old age of poet’s mother is shown. It is called fragmentation. Hence we may conclude that poem is post modern.

Structure and Rhyme scheme

Poem has five stanzas of those first one is triplet and rest four are quatrains. It has no rhyme scheme.

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