017. The Lotos-Eaters. Tennyson. Appreciation By P S Remesh Chandran

017.

The Lotos-Eaters. Alfred Lord Tennyson Poem. Appreciation By P S Remesh Chandran
 
Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum

 Image By Amanda Phung. Graphics: Adobe SP
 
First published: 24th Apr 2011.

 

The great veil of Victorian hypocrisy was lifted by Alfred Lord Tennyson and was shown to the world the lovely English mind behind it that was his. The Lotos-Eaters is the world’s greatest poetical experiment synchronizing sublime music with the changing moods and fancies of the exotic, psychedelic intoxication of a band of marine soldiers marooned on an island that nowhere existed. 

Failure of musical geniuses in exactly imitating changing moods of the exotically intoxicated.

Alfred Lord Tennyson was a Nineteenth century English poet. He is considered the greatest poet and true representative of the Victorian Era. In Memoriam was his masterpiece. The Lotos-Eaters is a memorable poem in which he describes the arrival of Ulysses’ Greek soldiers on the island of Lotos Eaters. They are a lazy philosophic lot who do not like hard labour of any kind. Once the sailors in the ship are given the Lotos fruit, leaf and stem and they have eaten them, they too are such transformed that they no more wish to sea-travel and see their homes. Sublime music and selected words create an atmosphere of languor, laziness and sleepiness in the poem which is Tennyson’s unique achievement and craftsmanship. This is the poem in which Tennyson experimented with music changing with the moods of each action, each bit of music perfectly reflecting the corresponding change in mood. Attempts to perfectly orchestrate this song have more or less failed through years due to failure of musical geniuses in exactly imitating the changing mind and moods of the exotically and psychedelically intoxicated. 

A land of mountains, rivers, valleys, wind and waves, and Lotos plants. 

A portrait of Baron Alfred Lord Tennyson.

Greek hero Ulysses and his band of soldiers had spent ten years in the Trojan War. Returning home they were lost in the sea and had to spend a few more years in roaming the sea. At last they sighted land. It was the land of Lotos Eaters. From the height of their anchored ship they could see far into the interior of the island. It was an island of mountains, rivers, valleys, wind and waves. Streams and falls were everywhere. Green woods and meadows ornamented plains and hills. It was a land where all things always seemed the same. No signs of cultivation or other human activities were to be seen anywhere there.

 
Lotos: Personification of exotic, psychedelic intoxication of human mind. 

Then the mild and melancholy eyed island dwellers appeared and they silently approached the ship. They bore branches, leaves and stems of that enchanted plant of Lotos as presentations to visitors to their island from which they gave to each. Before Ulysses could prevent, his soldiers one and all had eaten them. Once they tasted this magical herb their attitudes and outlook dramatically changed. The once-courageous and strong mariners and soldiers all seemed tired suddenly. Those famous soldiers who fought bravely beside Ulysses in the fierce Trojan War now no more wish to bear the burden of sailing their ship through turbulent seas. Whoever tasted that magical herb given by those islanders became exactly like them. They seemed to be deep asleep yet all awake. The voices of nearby persons seemed to them thin voices from the depth of grave. Even their own heart beats resounded loudly and musically in their own ears. So now we see the Ulysses’ famous soldiers all sitting on the yellow sand, begin singing a chorus, the likeness of which has never ever been seen anywhere in English literature. All the efforts of their captain, the mighty Ulysses, could not move them an inch or release them from their hallucination and the spell of that magical plant. 

Why sweetness of soul’s music and soothing pleasure of sleep are denied to man?

Path to Tennyson's Monument in the Isle Of Wight.

The mariners who tasted Lotos all became philosophers overnight who begin to worship idleness. Man is the roof and crown of things. He is the first and foremost of things but he alone is destined to toil. He makes perpetual moan in his life and is thrown from one sorrow to another perpetually. Enjoying leisurely the sweetness of his soul’s music and the soothing pleasures of sleep are forbidden to him. Weariness, heaviness and distress weigh him down. Hearing the excellent arguments of the mariners expressed in their chorus will make us wonder at the mathematical perfection of their logic and philosophy. We will be moved to stay with them and approbate their logic verbatim. That is the descriptive skill of Tennyson which made him the prominent poet of his era and after. There has never been a poem describing the attitude towards life and the philosophizing of a unique, exotically and psychedelically intoxicated band of humans more vividly.

 
The leaf and fruit and flower all have their sweet lives; man alone toils.

Tennyson's house in Farringford.

The mariners begin to compare the tediousness of their lives with the easiness and quietness of the lives of leaves, fruits and flowers. They complete the cycles of their simple lives without any toil. Leaves open, grow and fall gently. The ripe fruits drop silently in autumn nights. Whereas man is a traveller and roamer, flowers are fast-rooted in their fertile soil. Flowers enjoy their allotted length of days, bloom and fade and fall, without toil. But man is the only being that is seen to be toiling in one way or another, in the fields, forests or oceans. Time driveth onward fast and in little time man’s life period is expired. Whatever man achieves is taken from him to become portions and parcels of a dreadful past which we commonly call history. All things under the Sun have rest except man. Therefore the mariners are not going to mount the rolling waves and travel any more. They want to stay forever on the island. After listening to their arguments we will be tempted to do nothing but agree. 

Why return after years like apparitions to their native island of chaos?

Freshwater Bay seen from Afton Down.

But Ulysses was a very persuasive person. He used every trick and argument in his quiver to tempt his mariners to return to Ithaca. But they warn their captain that it would not be wise for them to return to their island home of Ithaca. Everything might have changed there. Their sons would have inherited them after all these years. The returning ancestors would only be viewed as ghosts and apparitions come to trouble their joy. Or else the over-bold island princes of Ithaca, fearing no return of the heroes might have married their wives and spent their fortunes. Their great deeds in wars would have been half-forgotten, sung only in songs. Even if they are lucky and oriented enough to return to their land, it would be harder still to please their gods after all these years and settle order once again in their island. So why not spend the rest of their lives in this quiet island of Lotos and enjoy sleep and laziness to their fill? How can even a very persuasive person counter, in the face of this unbroken torrent of reasons? 

Mariners declining to resume travel: the dread of all sea-going captains.

Coastal path to Tennyson's Monument.

These instances were not uncommon in the days of the rowing sea ship travels. They were the dread of every captain. Crew may refuse to move on after months of tiresome travels and incline to stay for ever in a new found land. A sailor’s life is a life of action. The mariners here have had enough of action and of motion in their lives. They had been constantly rolling to the starboard and larboard sides of the ship as it swayed left and right on the surging waves. The deep sea where the wallowing monster that is the whale spouted his foam-fountain had been their home and playground for too long. Now that is past and enough. They are tired of the sea and now they are inclined only to live and lie reclined in the hollow Lotos Land forever. 

Gods lying together happily on their hills, careless and fearless of mankind!

When man does not obey, the clever will threaten him with the consequences of antagonizing their gods. As a last resort Ulysses seems to have done this, because now begins their discourse which, if he had had an opportunity to listen to, might have converted even the most firm believer into an atheist. When sensations and feelings were divided between man and gods, miseries were reserved for man while pleasures went to gods. Man suffers much in this world. Blight, famine, fire and earthquake, ocean flood and desert heat are all his lot. Man sows the seed, reaps the harvest and toils endlessly till his death. He stores wheat and wine and oil for his future but he has no future as he is most often withdrawn silently without notice from this world. Even after death he is doomed to suffer in hell. Man’s sorrowful songs of lamentation steam up to gods’ abode in heaven, like tales of little meaning though the words are strong. But listening to them, gods find music in his woes and laugh. It is the gods who are responsible for man’s sorrow. But they act indifferent to man. They lie together happily on their hills, careless and fearless of mankind. They keep their divine food nectar always close to them; what else do they do except relishing and draining it? They hurl their thunder bolts at man far below craving in the valleys, which is a joke to them. They sit in their golden houses surrounded by clouds and smile at the misery of man far below. All arguments of their captain were blunted by the magnificent and sincere defense of the mariners. Tennyson in the poem does not tell us whether their captain was finally able and eloquent enough to persuade his soldiers to return to their home land, but history does.

Image By Claudio Schwarz. Graphics: Adobe SP





 
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Pictures Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

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Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of Swan : The Intelligent Picture Book. 

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016. Are Our Women And Children Safe In Our Hospitals? P S Remesh Chandran

016

Are Our Women And Children Safe In Our Hospitals? 

P. S. Remesh Chandran  

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum

Image By Coco Parisienne, Pixabay. Graphics: Adobe SP
  

Doctors like to think that they have immunity against crimes they commit on human lives caused by their ignorance, negligence and dereliction. These true stories from India illustrates how unsafe the lives of our women and children are in our hospitals and how incapable and submissive governments are towards crimes committed in hospitals by the blue-collared in India.

World people's money squandered on opulence and luxuries.

Human Newborn. Will the World Allow to Live? By Ernest F.

World Health Organization extends assistance of millions of dollars of world people’s money each year to developing countries and under developed countries, but lets go unpardonable crimes committed with the opulence and lavishness of this world money. It is time the death of thousands of Indian mothers in simple PPS operations be investigated by international agencies. The sad and heart-rending pictures from the other Asian countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan and China also are not any different. It is true diseases attack us when we are left with no money in our pockets, but that is when jackals and hyenas in gowns demand us money for treating us in hospitals. The famous free hospital system of India is crushed down inch by inch by the rulers of India to please the greedy new generation body mechanics and the mammoth medical and health insurance companies they serve subserviently. When government brings changes in the health care sector they look whether the big medical and health insurance companies and drugs manufacturing companies would be pleased, not whether the poor patients of India would be pleased. The irony is it is these poor people who gave the government the mandate through elections to bring about these changes, not these conglomerates.

25000 Rupees for carrying an operating knife buried in the abdomen for 20 years.

  Mother's love vast deep and limitless as the brine By Pozytyv.   

News reports from Tamil Nadu in India say that the State Human Rights Commission there ordered the government to pay compensation of 25000 rupees to Coimbatore Veera Keralam Thentral Nagar-native Mohanraj’s wife Nandini. In 1989 she gave birth to a child at the Coimbatore government hospital after which she also underwent a Post Partum Surgery. Following this simple surgery which is done for birth control, she began to experience severe pain in her lower abdomen and sought treatment in a number of hospitals. After consuming a load of pain killers through the years, she was advised by Dr. Nandakumar of Coimbatore to scan her abdomen which she did. Presence of an operating knife in her lower abdomen was detected in the scan. The doctors of Coimbatore government hospital after a caesarian operation had closed her abdomen leaving an operating knife negligently there. The State Human Rights Commission registered a case based on a 2008 newspaper report, after 20 years of the incident. Even though 25000 Indian rupees, i.e. nearly 5000 dollars for carrying an operating knife for 20 years in one’s lower abdomen buried there by the insolent negligence of a government surgeon is a paltry sum, the goodwill of the Human Rights Commission of Tamil Nadu to order payment of compensation as token of admittance of a state crime against a woman of India is applaudable, though a very rare verdict in India where judges live in awe of doctors.

Murder of thousands of mothers in simple PPS operations by negligent psychopaths.

  Maternal Affection Immortalized in Marble By Edward Hodges Baily 1788-1867.

It is primary responsibility of attending surgeons to count the number of articles that went in and taken out during a surgery. It is they who have to ensure that whatever has gone in have also been taken out. Do not anyone even think that the health services are a wild jungle. Everything is protocolled in advance. If something is left behind, it is someone’s responsibility. If death results as a consequence, it is plain murder. The Indian Law is such clear and plain, unless confused by authorities who wish to save the asses of their criminal darlings. If government does not take action, the government is accessory to that crime through its officers. The Constitution of India does not offer immunity to doctors against crimes resulting from their ignorance or negligence. The question is, whether the government has allowed the culprits to continue in their posts as surgeons and if already retired, whether the government would be willing and prepared to prosecute them and cut their pensions. Is the responsibility of government simply to pay compensations for the misdeeds and mistakes made by surgeons or to arrest and prosecute them for their crimes?

The above case is only one of nearly a million happened in Tamil Nadu. During the 1980s there was a feverish rush of PPS operations going on in almost all states of India, following the central government’s offering of handsome incentives to doctors, as part of national birth control activities. Hundred thousands of PPS operations were done then by incompetent doctors everywhere, not less than ten percent of them resulting in casualties such as those discussed here. Kerala was the number one state with the highest number of PPS operations done. Awards were given, merit certificates issued and money transferred. Kerala is considered perhaps the state with the highest literacy rate in India but the following incident would reveal that this higher literacy rate of any state in India does not make the killing of women and children in hospitals by ignorant, negligent and psychopathic doctors impossible to happen or punishable by practice in India.

One time bribe for male; each visit bribe for lady.

  Not at all a burden. By Ton Smiers. Pixabay. 

In 1984, a young lady named Shanta from Kurupuzha Village in Trivandrum District was admitted in the Nedumangadu Taluk Headquarters Hospital for delivery. She had no relatives except husband serving in the Middle East and a very old grandfather who stayed with her in the hospital. The two gynecologists, one male and the other female who worked in that hospital at that time, had only one difference between them. The male got satisfied with a one-time bribe. The female insisted on bribe each day she visited a patient or the patient was compelled to visit her. It will look and feel like we are in the Barbarian Ages as regard to hospitals in Kerala whether the state is ruled by the Congress Party or the Communist Party. The old man who accompanied her did not know anything about giving bribes to doctors to please them. He did not even know how to give bribes to doctors. So when the day of delivery arrived she gave birth to a healthy boy child in an ‘inevitable and indispensable’ caesarian operation. Following a PPS operation also, she was returned to her home. The very next day the patient was rushed back to the hospital following fits, which was unusual after ordinary, common simple PPS operations. So the patient with her nascent child was referred to the Sree Avittam Tirunal Hospital for Women & Children in the capital city of Trivandrum. It is to be noted that the two gynecologists who operated on her also accompanied her to the SAT hospital.

Blood-stained cotton mop discovered inside Peritonis membrane in the abdomen.

  Mother posed, the child didn't. By Ian Riley Brentwood, USA.

The patient lying on the bed in the SAT Hospital would levitate and fall onto the floor as if picked up and thrown down there by some unknown hands. Even the skilled doctors at that prestigious institution could not diagnose the true cause of this symptom. Because she could not breast-feed her child, the baby died after 3 months. She lay there in the hospital for nine more months, after which she too succumbed to death. In normal cases hospital deaths won’t be subjected to post mortem examinations. But this being a unique case which had brain-teased the skilled doctors there for months, they decided to post-mortem operate and study it as a unique case. A months-old, blood-stained cotton mop was discovered from inside the Peritonis membrane of the abdomen. Human body’s involuntary effort and strain to oust this foreign body out was what was causing those fits. Think about the compensation that will have to be paid, in European standards. Even in the Asian standards, it will not come lower than Five hundred thousand rupees for two deaths with a single knife.

Had those two doctors who did the PPS confessed earlier or had even expressed even a doubt from the beginning as to any mistake that might have happened on their part, the patient would have been examined on the very first day for any hospital mistakes and any ignorance or negligence on the part of the surgeons, the cotton mop would have been detected and removed, and the patient and her child would have gone to their home alive and would have been living still today. Loss of two precious human lives to the greed and negligence of two insolent incompetent doctors! Had they been given the dreamed-about bribe by the ignorant old man before the surgery they would have cared. The two culprits were depending on the sure chance of a hospital death not going to be post-mortem examined. The SAT Hospital recorded Peritonitis as the cause of death in their Post-Mortem Report.

The two doctors were suspended from service because the doctors at the SAT hospital had clearly noted in their post-mortem report that it was a peritonis death. Without man’s involvement nothing will get into that sealed membrane. Can the woman lying under sedation there take a cotton mop herself and thrust it into her abdominal cavity and then sew it up herself. So the authorities in the person of the District Medical Officer of Trivandrum and the Director of Health Services, Kerala, finding no other way to rescue them from prosecution, dismissal and imprisonment, had to issue Show Cause Notices and Memo of Charges to both. Then government waited for a few months for the complainants and the local people to lose steam before the disciplinary proceedings could be set aside. The post-mortem report was concrete evidence which could not be bypassed and which would not be overlooked by any judicial court if it reached the prosecution level. So all evidence of they ever having been suspended were destroyed by the anti-governmental criminal gang in the DMO’s, DHS’ and the Health Secretary’s offices and the two doctors reinstated in service. All trace of records including the disciplinary action files vanished.

Did they even get into the central government’s Accountant General’s office to destroy the records there too?

In those days the post-mortem certificates in hospitals were kept in the book form with pages serially numbered and bound, the pages maintained in carbon copy triplicates- one immediately sent to the DMO, one immediately to the Judicial Court whether there was a case or not, and one in file. No tampering, manipulation or correction was possible without detection by police or criminal courts. It was at this exact time that the government, in the person of the health secretary, ordered the winding up of this book form and instructed the post-mortem certificates in health institutions to be maintained in the loose form! Meaningful, and useful indeed for the nefarious operations of a criminal gang of government officers! And in no time the twine were promoted to higher posts. But they forgot one thing. Only their service records were with the state government. Their salary payment records were with the Accountant General’s office under the control of the central government of India as they were Gazetted-Level Officers from where their Pay Slips for each month sent to the concerned state treasury. Their suspension orders and reinstatement orders in full (not abstracts) showing the reasons thereof are permanent records at the A. G’s office and treasury. Did they even get into the Accountant General’s Office and destroyed the records there too through their patronized employees’ organizations there?

Are governments to pay compensation for doctors’ follies with people’s money?

  Mother and child face to face. By Robert Whitehead.

Every Peritonitis death will have a person responsible for it behind it. In all cases memo of charges will be issued, explanations received and accepted and the files will be closed at the right time for promotions. Media will withdraw from pursuing the case and will get other headlines. Complaints made by the relatives and natives of the deceased will come to nothing. Government will decline to interfere for fear of thousands and thousands of such other PPS deaths and hospital blunders coming to daylight and being investigated and prosecuted, resulting in payment of huge amounts as compensations. People normally fear to make complaints against doctors, as all know that doctors are closely associated with police officers in witnessing and evidencing medico-legal cases in judicial courts and in issuance of wound certificates and post-mortem certificates which the police always are in need of for pursuing many cases. They have become a very friendly lot and one will not betray the other. So people are reluctant to pursue complaints against doctors as a general rule. Doctors are licensed to practice till the end of their days where IAS, IPS, IFS and IRS officers in India have to retire at a fixed age. People’s representatives and legislators also know that they someday will lose their power and authority and will become sick and will have to be admitted in hospitals. That is why in India doctors have become answerable to no one for their crimes. Will anyone believe that the lady culprit in this crime mentioned eventually became director for the entire health service operations in the state?

There are other equally shocking and disturbing cases from the other states of India. In 2014 in Chhattisgarh 83 tubectomy operations were done on women taking just three and a half hours, with only one doctor and one nursing assistant attending, spending just two minutes per surgery, as it they were determined to break some world records, which left 11 women dead, 7 battling for life and 40 admitted in hospitals for shock and trauma from loss of blood. The same year in Mumbai in Maharashtra 83 sterilization surgeries were done on delivered women and 8 of them died and dozens of them were hospitalized for loss of blood. In Rajastan a doctor stole kidneys from patients and in Chhattisgurh it was wombs stolen by doctors. Without having spine to disciplinize these rogues the Indian health authorities still went to international health fund givers begging for funds! And there was this case in September 2014 at Payyannur Taluk Hospital in Kerala where the attending doctors captured child birth scenes in their costly mobile phones and circulated them in Whatts App for the world to see and enjoy. Police dropped the case after a few days’ farce investigation, saying proof could not be established (in this space age)! The Indian Medical Association defended and protected these ‘doctors’ (?). All just a few of the reported cases from the various Indian states in the year 2014 alone!

Because they have already been discussed in this author’s book, ‘WHO, IMF, IBRD And ADB Money To India Health Finances Human Rights Violations And Corruption’, the many other relevant cases are not repeatedly discussed here.

Toppling a world famous health infra structure by fake doctors.

   

Solacing each other, the eternal duo. By Charles West Cope 1875.

Justice M. P. Menon Commission that enquired into the fake university mark list cases in Kerala concluded their report by commenting that they had the opportunity to expose only a few of the fake doctors in Kerala and that thousands of them were continuing in the health services department as doctors, unquestioned and unexamined by anybody. The Commission expected that government would pursue what action the Honorable Commission could not undertake with their limited time and resources. Why government did not take any continued action was due to the majority of these fake doctors being sons and daughters of those higher officials, business men and industrial houses who run the state. The argument then had been that exposing and dismissing thousands of such doctors from health service would topple the health infrastructure in the state which was then being held in high esteem by even the W.H.O., but later developments in the state and Kerala’s later falling prey to indefensible serial fevers which claimed thousands of lives and incapacitated tens of thousands more, proved that the health infrastructure in the state had already been toppled by them.

 
Image By Eric Froehling, Pixabay. Graphics: Adobe SP.

First published: 23rd Apr 2011
Slightly edited: April 2020

Note: The images do not relate to the news or the incidents under reference.

Title Images Courtesy: Pixabay.

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Pictures Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
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Tags

Atrocities Against Women, Compensation For Women Deaths, Deaths From Treatment Mistakes, Health In India Kerala, Hospital Deaths, Human Rights Violations, P P S Deaths Asia,  Women Deaths In India, W H O Funding, Women Mortality Safety,

FROM THE BOOK:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B087D34RVM 

About the Author P. S. Remesh Chandran:

Author Profile Of P S Remesh Chandran By Sahyadri Archives.

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of Swan: The Intelligent Picture Book. Born and brought up in the beautiful village of Nanniyode in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Trivandrum, in Kerala. Father British Council trained English teacher and Mother University educated. Matriculation with distinction and Pre Degree Studies in Science with National Merit Scholarship. Discontinued Diploma studies in Electronics and entered politics. Unmarried and single.

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Post: P. S. Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books, Trivandrum, Padmalayam, Nanniyode, Pacha Post, Trivandrum- 695562, Kerala State, South India.

011. No More Hiroshimas. James Kirkup. Appreciation By P S Remesh Chandran

011.

No More Hiroshimas. James Kirkup. Appreciation By P.S.Remesh Chandran

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum

23rd Mar 2011.

Link: http://sahyadribooks-remesh.blogspot.in/2012/03/011-no-more-hiroshimas-james-kirkup.html

01. Article Title 1 Image & Graphics By Adobe SP.

Mankind hates to destruct, in spite of the destructive traits inherent in man. In his heart, man is a good being who likes to preserve mankind's achievements intact for the posterity. But politics is most often not led by men, but by mobs and crowds. Wars, when fought by single persons, have always turned out to be good to the world: Socrates, Tolstoy, and Louis Pasteur. When fought by people commanding vast armies, they turned hell loose on the world: Attila, Timur, Adolph Hitler.

292 years free of war, in a history of 5500 years.

02. US bombers moving to Japan over Mount Fuji By US Federal Archives.

In the history of mankind, no desire has been older and stronger than the desire for a world without wars. For centuries, peace in this world only meant the interval between two wars. Swiss historian Jean- Jacques Bebel calculated that out of the 5500 years' history of the world, only 292 years remained free of any wars. Two World Wars originated from the soil of Germany. But in Europe the guns are comparatively silent now. People hope that the clock of history won't be turned back again.

Sumi-ko, War And Peace and The Flowers Of Hiroshima.

03. But for Imperialism! Matsumoto Castle By 663 Highland.

Anti-War Literature, Arms-Limitation and Political Detènte brought about this favourable situation. Countless novels like War And Peace, Sumi-ko and The Flowers Of Hiroshima, and dozens of plays like Henrik Ibsen’s Ghost taught human mind to synchronize itself with political upheavals and outbreaks in society caused by the opportunism and profiteerism of leading persons and, at the same time and in the midst of these chaos, practice the negative virtue of tolerance also. Wilfred Owen and James Kirkup were just two of the hundreds of anti-war poets who added the influence of their poetry too to the great body of this world-wide movement for peace.

Three-headed fishes and children with no head at all: the balance-sheet of a megaton blast.
 

04. Pre-war serenity in Japan By Σ64.

The atom-bomb which blasted in Hiroshima in the Second World War wiped out millions of people from the face of the earth. Millions more survived only for subjecting themselves to life-long agony. They remained more dead than alive. Three-headed fishes and children with no head at all were common spectacles in the affected areas for so many years. Radio-activated patients overcrowded hospitals in cities and villages in Japan, their sustaining and affording became a national problem, and ate into the already scant resources of the nation. Catastrophe continued through generations. Destructions of war were horrific and great and their relics were exhibited in War Memorials and Museums to remind the world that the wayward and war-driven politicians cannot be depended on anymore for the care of humanity.

The poet- traveller who finally arrives in Japan to settle.

05. Hiroshima City before the bombing By Leonardo G.

James Falconer Kirkup was a poet, translator and travel-writer born in England. His poems, plays, novels and autobiographies made him a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. After a few years living an eventful life in his island nation of England, he longed for the continents and travelled through and resided in Europe, America, Far East, and finally reached Japan where he settled for 30 years and taught English Literature in several Universities. He was very skilled in writing Haiku Poems and for this reason was much respected by the Japanese. The Emperor of Japan and the Empress invited him to recite poetry in their presence, and he was presented with many prestigious awards there. No More Hiroshimas was his famous poem in which he revealed to the world the commercialized post-war faces of Japan.

A river once polluted refuses to be rehabilitated and remains sad for ever.

06. Hiroshima City after the bombing By Leonardo G.

In the poem we see the poet arriving at a railway station in the atom bombed and reconstructed city of Hiroshima. He cannot quite identify which city it is, since all cities look the same in the post-war Japan. It resembles any other town in Japan, as all towns are noisy, muddy and ramshackle alike after the war. In the dim dew-falling evening, he walks towards the city centre. Neon exhibits of traders attract his attention. They are advertising Atomic Lotion for hair fallout. It looks ridiculous to this much-travelled poet, but who knows what the pain and frustration of those whose hair falls out rapidly daily is? Remember that rapid hair fall out is an after effect of atomic radiation. Like Oliver Goldsmith wrote in his long poem Deserted Village, he feels, 'trade's unfeeling train has usurped the land and disposed of the swaine.' Whatever had remained unsellable in the pure and proud tradition of the Japanese for centuries are now being made sellable to attract tourists and to collect revenue for sustaining their wrecked nation. He passes rows of fruit stalls and meat stalls, soaking up the scenes around him on his way, and finally reaches the river. The face of Hiroshima was changing. Losses were recompensed and destructions were repaired. Everything was being restored to its former position or rehabilitated to the nearest-possible condition. But the river alone 'remains unchanged and sad, refusing any kind of rehabilitation.' The river symbolizes the once-proud and sad stream of life in the city. Once polluted and downgraded, it can never be rehabilitated to its former form, however hard we try. 'The Hiroshima River- it was the pride of a bold peasantry that was broken and hurt.' We must remember one thing here: Hiroshima and Nagasaki were two great industrial cities which contributed much to the war machine of Japan- in fact the backbones of the imperialist war-hungry nation. Japanese soldiers’ atrocities in other cities in other countries during the war were such heinous that it was decided to atom bomb Japanese cities rather than German. Remember also that the Second World War stopped immediately after the atom bombs dropped on these Japanese cities. The general consensus was that there was no other way. It was not a question of trial-running the first atomic bombs but of rescuing the world from further Japanese and German holocausts.
  07. Article Title 2 Image & Graphics By Adobe SP.

The traveller and the poet fight in a dilapidated hotel room.

08. A melted down clock from Ground Zero By James Sydney Australia.

In the city proper, the poet finds life busy, splendid, and ornamental. People seem to have forgotten what have happened in their city. In some shops, cheaply decorated mini models of the famous bombed Industry Promotion Hall are on display for sale. The indecent modernity of the tourist hotel in which he stays displeases him. The twisted stair cases which witnessed the mega blast and kept as such as a memorial and a tourist attraction appear like they may collapse and fall anytime. He feels 'the contemporary stairs treacherous, the corridors deserted and people-less, his room in the hotel an overheated mortuary, and the bar, a bar in darkness.' The traveller poet is uncertain as to whether he should grieve or relish the unrepaired state of the heavily damaged and dilapidated hotel where he stays. The traveller in him craves for comfort, while the poet in him longs for the city’s up-keeping of nostalgic status-quo on things wrecked in the world war.

The power to forget is the greatest faculty of the oriental mind.

09. Japanese surrender before the United States By U S National Archives.

When a nation and a people feel they are wronged, it is general agreement that they have a right to be angry. But in the city of Hiroshima the poet sees it was evident the people forgot everything too soon. Their sorrow seems to have short-lived. He has his own European logic in such matters and is angry that their anger too has gone dead. He is plain in his poetic nature to speak that anger should not die but should be kept alive till all war-destructions are avenged. As an old saying goes, 'To forgive is to cut the branches of the tree; but to forget is to lay axe to the very roots’: though not his lines, it reflects well his philosophy. It has to be noted here that the poet was born and brought up in Britain, has travelled through Europe and lived many years in Europe, America and the Far East and has only arrived in Japan recently. He knows nothing about the workings of the Oriental Mind or about the great Japanese patience. Oriental Mind houses unlimited tolerance, deliquescence and magnanimity. Had it been otherwise, great philosophies like Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism would not have originated from their soil. Also, had the orient been vengeance-hungry, their places would have become vast burial grounds for the colonial British. Had man had to remember everything from his birth onwards, his brain would become overcrowded to the point of bursting. That was why Nature gifted man with the power to forget, as a pressure-valve to release the anger inside and pacify mind- the very essentials to running an oriental mind.
  10. Article Title 3 Image & Graphics By Adobe SP.

Imperialist Japan was asking for this bombing of their industrial city, before they could bomb all industrial cities of the world.

There is also the question of whether Japan deserved this bombing. The imperial forces of Japan, joining military hands with the German Nazis who were dreaming of a thousand years’ reign of the Reich in the world, and sharing with a Fascist Mussolini the hallucinatory vision of carving out and sharing the world three ways between them, were conquering peaceful countries one after the other, and everywhere there was the only question of who would teach these killers a lesson and stop them. The unnatural allies Soviet Union and the United States joined together when Pearl Harbour was attacked by Japan, the communist countries Poland and Hungary fell before Germany and the land of freedom France was marched through. Britain joined them when Singapore was captured by Japan and London was heavily bombed. The Manhattan Project where the atom bomb design and development was going on began to progress with rocket speed and hence the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the right time! It was simply a decision to destroy Japan before Japan, Germany and Italy destroyed the world. Japan surrendered and Hitler shot his rifle through his mouth; and within a few days the Second World War came to an end. Japan was asking for this bombing of their industrial city of Hiroshima before they could bomb all the industrial cities of the world. It is true that the people of Japan could not be made responsible for the activities of their emperor but the fact remains that without these people this emperor would have been a great helpless zero. It can be said that it is only right that Japan should forget, and forgive, this destruction of their two famous cities, without ever forgetting that the incineration of the thousands of innocent children in the explosions will remain a shame on the conscience of the world. Had it been it were all the mad politicians and war-mongers in Japan, German and Italy been fried in these explosions, it would have been better and fine.

'How times are altered, and trade's unfeeling train usurps the land!'

11. Children's Peace Monument in Hiroshima By Taisyo.

But in Japan, the poet sees instead, atomic peace being geared to meet the demands of the tourists' trade. War relics are renovated for promoting tourism industry, adding new charm, loveliness and nobility to them. But the poet feels that this renovation is a shame and indignity to those sacred relics, sacred in the sense that every one of them contains the last breath of a passing soul. As indignated already, they are beyond all hope of further indignation by anyone. Athens in Greece is a city conquered and ravished by so many aggressors in so many generations. There, ancient ruins and modern constructions co-exist beautifully and add to the tourist revenue of Greece. They are never renovated but kept as such, reminding the world the horrendousness of the attacks. The great ruins are the real charm there. The poet who made extensive travels in the Mediterranean must have seen them all and is following the same logic here.

Who will not weep when they see it, if they see it?

12. Tranquility restored. A Garden near Hiroshima Castle By Fg2.

It is when he reaches the Park Of Peace that the emotional poet finds something perfectly appealing to his orthodox tastes, i.e., true Japanese tastes. It is the only place in Hiroshima City that rouses respect in his mind. It is a monument for the children who were blasted away in mankind's crime. The various exhibits in the War Memorial Museum moved him and he wept. Melted bricks and slates, photos of various scenes after the blast and other relics of the explosion were arranged there for all the world to see. The other relics which made the poet weep were watches all stuck at that fated time, burnt clothing, charred boots, twisted buttons, ripped kimonos, atomic rain-perforated blouses and the cotton pants in which blasted boys crawled to homes to bleed and breathe their last. When we see these relics we will invariably think about the people who wore them, who were inside them, their lovely faces and radiant smiles all blotted out in a single blast of heat and light and sound- women, men, little children and old people. We will be reminded of how we will be annihilating one another in the future. We can go to this doom or live peacefully: it is our choice. According to the poet, they are the only memorials of the war, worth viewing. When we come to this part of the poem, we come to agree with the poet that war remains shall not be sold or grief commercialized, however poor we are. The poet has finally perfectly convinced us of this ages-old adage of all traditional people. War relics are the properties of our dead, people who lived and played and laughed with us. Possessions of the dead are sacred and are not to be sold. When death occurs in a home, it is when we see the clothes worn by the bygone person hanging there or lying somewhere there that a lump is formed in our throat and we begin weeping. It is a feeling not to be written, told, expressed; a feeling so sacred and private to the soul of humans that even its utterance is crime.


ANNEXURE I: A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY OF JAMES KIRKUP.

James Falconer Kirkup was born on 23 April 1918 in South Shields in Durham as the only son of a carpenter. His earliest studies were at South Shields Secondary School and Armstrong College at the University of Durham. During the Second World War, Kirkup was a farm labourer who opposed wars. Even before the war ended, his first volume of poetry The Cosmic Shape had come out in London in 1946 in co-authorship with Ross Nichols.

Even while teaching French and German at the Downs School and a Grammar School and having his second collection of poems The Drowned Sailor been published in 1947, he grew up such unconventional and unorthodox- in his own words ‘Bohemian Freedom’- that typists to editors were known to have refused to type some of his words in poems. For example: the poem The Convenience which described the recreational activities of men in urinals. Remember that though the world was opening up as a result of two world wars, England was still an orthodox country in many ways and its people frowned upon such licentious freedoms. Any ordinary man would select his home in a peaceful village or a suburb. But do you know where he selected his? In the Red Street! Anyway, his literary genius was such undeniable and recognized that he was appointed the First Fellow in Poetry at Leeds University in 1950 following an award from the Rockefeller Foundation- the first resident university poet in England. In 1953 he found his way to the Bath Academy as its Head of the Department of English. But how could a true Bohemian control his true whims and instincts? In 1956 he left England and embarked on a lecture tour through Europe and landed at the Kyoto University, Japan after years as Professor of English Literature at their Department of Foreign Studies.

Though he never learned Japanese language well, he became an expert in using their special poetical forms Haiku and Tanka in English poetry and soon became a favourite of the Emperor and Empress of Japan. They summoned him to palace to listen to his poems and showered upon him awards and university positions. And by this time he had been made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in England in 1964. His name was often heard connected with Cardiff and Sheffield Universities at this time. But the great drift began when he published a poem carnally assaulting Christ. There were prosecution and legal proceedings against the printer and the editor of the news paper which came to nothing in the end. Kirkup himself admitted later that it was a bad poem, bad in everyway including literary conception and poetical beauty. But he never came anywhere near England for a long time but stayed away. In 1988 he moved permanently to his little haven and eyrie in the small country of Andorra in the Pyrenees Mountains in Europe between France and Spain, and spent his last years till 10 May 2009 there. He died aged 91 years. What an adventurous life! Compared to the strictly Victorian and conservative poets like Tennyson before him and others in his time in England, Kirkup was a flamboyantly brilliant personality, wearing kimonos, obedient to no rules except his own, and an exceptionally individualistic and overly self-loving genius. In his escapades, he can be compared only with Lord George Gordon Byron.

13. Andorra, The last haven of James Kirkup By Jose Manuel.
 
ANNEXURE II: POEMS, PLAYS AND AUTOBIOGRAPHIES WRITTEN BY JAMES KIRKUP.

James Kirkup’s noted poems published between 1947 and 2011 are The Drowned Sailor, The Submerged Village, A Spring Journey, The Descent into the Cave, The Prodigal Son, No Men Are Foreign, The Caged Bird in Springtime, White Shadows, Black Shadows, The Body Servant, The Sand Artist, The Haunted Lift, The Lonely Scarecrow, The House at Night, Strange Attractors, A Certain State of Mind, Broad Daylight, The Patient Obituarist, How to Cook Women, An Extended Breath, Burning Giraffes, Measures of Time, Pikadon, He Dreamed He was a Butterfly, and Home Thoughts in chronological order. The finest among his plays were The Prince of Homburg and The Meteor, published between 1959 and 1973. In addition, he published a few remarkable autobiographical works like The Only Child, I, of All People and Me All Over between 1957 and 1993. His translations of French novels include The Dark Child, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, A Room in the Woods, Painted Shadows, Vagabond Winter, The Compassion Protocol, The Man in the Red Hat and Blind Sight and Paradise in chronological order between 1955 and 1996. Physicists, published in 1963, was a translation of a German play. The strangest thing about his literary career was that he loved writing obituaries on famous persons exclusively for The Independent. They printed more than 300 obituaries written by him. It was even rumoured that most of these obituaries were written in advance!

ANNEXURE III: WARS WHICH CREATED HISTORY AND ALSO WAR POETS.

Almost all epics of the world were war poems- The Mahabharata, The Iliad, The Song of Roland, Beowulf. War poems were written both by combating soldiers and non-combating civilians, against war or celebrating war, on almost all wars that have happened in this world, the most important ones being the American Civil War, Crimean War, Boer War, Spanish Civil War, World War I and II, and Vietnam War. Many British, Irish, Canadian, Russian, French and German poets wrote poems on the First World War and many American, Romanian and Japanese poets joined their ranks during the Second World War. War poems needn’t always feel war-specific to later generations. Some poems will appear to be applicable to all wars. And some may find relevance in all ages. Prior to World War poems, one outstanding poem about the futility of war was Thomas Hardy’s The Valenceens, in which changing the one single word ‘Valenceen’ to ‘Vietnam’ would make this eighteenth century poem fit and current for the twentieth century.

Walt Whitman who wrote ‘Beat! Beat! Drums!’ was the foremost American Civil War poet. Tennyson’s ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’ was written immediately after reading about the Crimean War in The Times News Paper, and the poem was circulated among Crimean War soldiers to boost their performance. Forty years later, Rudyard Kipling wrote a parody of this poem under the title ‘The Last of the Light Brigade’, to bring to world’s attention the plight of the old Crimean War veterans. Swinburne and Thomas Hardy were Boer War poets. Rupert Brooke and Siegfried Sassoon followed their very path in war poetry. The Spanish Civil War produced prominent poets like Clive Branson, Tom Wintringham and Roy Campbell. No one will forget García Lorca who was executed by the Spanish dictator General Franco and the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda who created the immortal epic The Third Residence On Earth in connection with the Spanish Civil War.

British poets like Isaac Rosenberg, Charles Sorley, Edward Thomas and Wilfred Owen died in the battlefield during World War I but others like Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and Ivor Gurney escaped with wounds and continued writing poetry. Julian Grenfell, Wilfrid Gibson, Robert Nichols and Herbert Read were other noted war poets of this time. No one will forget the Irish poets like W. B. Yeats, Francis Ledwidge and John O'Donnell who wrote poetry for the same cause during the same period. And also there were the German poets like Walter Flex, Stefan George and Heinrich Mann, French poets like Yvan Goll, Louis Pergaud and Adrien Bertrand, Russian poets like Ilya Ehrenburg, Alexander Blok and Nikolay Gumilyov, and Canadian poets like John McCrae and Robert W. Service who presented the world with excellent war poems. Of the thousands of war poems about the First World War written during the past hundred years, The Soldier by Rupert Brooke, My Boy Jack by Rudyard Kipling, In Flanders Fields by John McRae, Dreamers by Siegfried Sassoon, Marching Men by Marjorie Pickthall, To Germany by Charles Hamilton Sorley and Dulce et Decorum Est and The Send-Off by Wilfred Owen are outstanding.

The World War II also produced an equal number of eminent poets. Keith Douglas, Hamish Henderson, Sidney Keyes and Alun Lewis were British contributions. Karl Shapiro and Randall Jarrell were American who published their noted book while in active war duty. Karl Shapiro was even awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1945 while in service. Russian poetess Anna Akhmatova was an active witness to the 900-day Siege of St. Petersburg and the Romanian Jewish poet Paul Celan brought to print the most graphic descriptions of the horror and death in German Concentration Camps, himself a captive. Ryuichi Tamura, the most prominent Japanese war poet in active naval duty was the brain behind the Waste Land Poets, who closely followed the paths of W.H. Auden and T. S. Eliot, while Sadako Kurihara, one of the most noted anti-war poets in Japan who was living in Hiroshima on the day when the atom bomb was dropped, became a staunch criticizer of both Japan and America.

14. Article Title 4 Image & Graphics By Adobe SP. 

(Prepared from an English Poetry Class by P S Remesh Chandran)

First Published: 23 March 2011
Last Edited: 29 November 2018

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Pictures Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
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Picture Credits:

01. Article Title 1 Image & Graphics By Adobe SP
02. US bombers moving to Japan over Mount Fuji By US Federal Archives
03. But for Imperialism! Matsumoto Castle By 663 Highland
04. Pre-war serenity in Japan By Σ64
05. Hiroshima City before the bombing By Leonardo G
06. Hiroshima City after the bombing By Leonardo G
07. Article Title 2 Image & Graphics By Adobe SP
08. A melted down clock from Ground Zero By James Sydney Australia
09. Japanese surrender before the United States By U S National Archives
10. Article Title 3 Image & Graphics By Adobe SP
11. Children's Peace Monument in Hiroshima By Taisyo
12. Tranquility restored. A Garden near Hiroshima Castle By Fg2
13. Andorra, The last haven of Kirkup By Jose Manuel
14. Article Title 4 Image & Graphics By Adobe SP
15. Author Profile Of P S Remesh Chandran By Sahyadri Archives

Tags

Anti World War Poems, Atomic Bombings, Free Student Notes, English Japanese Poets, James Kirkup, Literary Essays Articles Reviews, No More Hiroshimas, Poem Reviews Notes Appreciations, P S Remesh Chandran, Sahyadri Books Trivandrum, World War II,
 
Comments

Rathnashikamani 
31st Mar 2011 (#)

Great tribute to James Kirkup, the compassionate poet.
Also let us hope for no more Fukushimas.

About the Author P. S. Remesh Chandran: 

15. Author Profile Of P S Remesh Chandran By Sahyadri Archives.

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of Swan: The Intelligent Picture Book. Born and brought up in the beautiful village of Nanniyode in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Trivandrum, in Kerala. Father British Council trained English teacher and Mother University educated. Matriculation with distinction and Pre Degree Studies in Science with National Merit Scholarship. Discontinued Diploma studies in Electronics and entered politics. Unmarried and single. 

Author of several books in English and in Malayalam, mostly poetical collections, fiction, non fiction and political treatises, including Ulsava Lahari, Darsana Deepthi, Kaalam Jaalakavaathilil, Ilakozhiyum Kaadukalil Puzhayozhukunnu, Thirike Vilikkuka, Oru Thulli Velicham, Aaspathri Jalakam, Vaidooryam, Manal, Jalaja Padma Raaji, Maavoyeppoleyaakaan Entheluppam!, The Last Bird From The Golden Age Of Ghazals, Doctors Politicians Bureaucrats People And Private Practice, E-Health Implications And Medical Data Theft, Did A Data Mining Giant Take Over India?, Will Dog Lovers Kill The World?, Is There Patience And Room For One More Reactor?, and Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book. 

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Post: P. S. Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books, Trivandrum, Padmalayam, Nanniyode, Pacha Post, Trivandrum- 695562, Kerala State, South India.


Identifier: SBT-AE-011. No More Hiroshimas. James Kirkup Poem. Appreciation. P. S. Remesh Chandran, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum.

Published by Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum.
Editor: P S Remesh Chandran.