Rajamouly Katta’s poem "Time": An
Interpretation
D.C. Chambial’s
Critique
Time has been
defined as “the definite continued progress of existence and events that occur
in apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, to
the future. Time is a component quantity of various measurements used to
sequence events, to compare the duration of events or the intervals between
them, and to quantify rates of change of quantities in material reality or in
conscious experience. Time is often referred to as a fourth dimension, along
with three spatial dimensions” (Wikipedia). Einstein, the twentieth century
renowned scientist and mathematician put forth his theory of spatial relativity
to explain “that time slows down or speeds up depending on how fast you move
relative to something else. Approaching the speed of light, a person inside a
spaceship would age much slower than his twin at home. Also, under Einstein’s
theory of general relativity, gravity can be time” (Wikipedia).
While throughout
the ancient literature, there is no hint to the origin of time, the Gita discloses that
Time also originated from the Supreme: He is time; and Time is Him. In the
tenth chapter of the Gita that is about the opulence of the Absolute, Lord Krishna
tells Arjuna that he is the source of all:
अहं सर्वस्य प्रभवो मत्त: सर्वं प्रवर्तते ।
इति मत्वा भजन्ते मां बुधा भावसमन्विता: ॥ 10.8 ॥
[I am the source
of all spiritual and material worlds. Everything emanates from me. The wise who
perfectly know this, engage in My devotional service and worship Me with their
hearts. - Trans. Swami Prabhupada]
and then in the
same chapter later, He tells us that He is Time:
अक्षराणामकारोऽस्मि द्वन्द्व:
सामासिकस्य च ।
अहमेवाक्षय:
कालो धाताहं विश्वतोमुख:
॥ 10.33 ॥
[Of letters I am
the letter A, and among compound words I am the dual compound. I am also
inexhaustible time, and of creators I am Brahma. - Trans. Swami Prabhupada]
In the 20th
century, the scientists propound the origin of time thus: “Everything, space,
time and matter, came into existence with a ‘Big Bang’, around 13.7 billion
years ago” (May 26). It is the scientists who have fixed the origin of Time
with ‘Big Bang’.
Dr. K. Rajamouly
is professor of English by vocation and poet, short story writer, essayist,
critic and translator by avocation. He has authored 23 books and 95 articles,
stories and poems published in national and international journals. he has
worked for his PhD on the concept of Time in the poetry of British poet, Philip
Larkin. So, time seems to have percolated into his conscious and oozes out in
his literary creations.
Dr. Rajamouly, a scholar
of Philip Larkin’s poetry becomes obsessed with Larkin’s concept of Time.
Professor Chelliah, of Madurai Kamraj University, who has also studied Larkin’s
poetry, contends: “A close analysis of Larkin’s poems would reveal the fact
that most of his poems lay focus on the deceiving and destroying capabilities
of time” (2). For him, time, in Larkin’s poetry, remains deceptive and
destructive.
Professor
Rajamouly writes a poem, entitled Time, which throws light on the varied
aspects of Time. The poem, for the benefit of readers, is given below:
TIME
How you stepped
into this world is strange
Your endless flow
is bound up in mystery;
Your galloping
speed for incessant change
Left imprints in
every living history.
The milestones
mark your age on the milky way
It’s race on
wheels at a high pace
A wayfarer’s
journey without stay,
Yet no trace of
weariness on your face
You manifest
eroding powers in all circles
Even pliant limbs
and sharp mind grow decrepit
The petal-soft
countenance carves wrinkles.
The sculpture in a
quake breaks into many a bit.
You resemble a
river in its ceaseless glide
Your resolve is
like the planets’ orbit
You look like an
eternal traveller in his ride,
And travel like
the flash of light brightly lit.
Five senses, in
strict governance of the mind,
Fail to unravel
and charter your powerful role
Mysterious are
your ways to humankind.
Everything
manifests under your iron control. (122)
After having read
the poem, let’s try to interpret it. The present poem, “Time”, is also a
manifestation of his penchant for the theme of time not only in his critical
writings but also in his creative works. The poem begins with an apostrophe to
Time personified:
How you stepped
into this world is strange
Your endless flow
is bound up in mystery;
Your galloping
speed for incessant change
Left imprints in
every living history. (lines 1-4)
The protagonist
finds it very queer about the appearance of Time in this world. The very first
word, “how”, in the first line, hits at the way, manner/mode, or means of its
appearance. The phrase “stepped into” makes Time appear as a living being, most
probably, a human being. Time does not stop anywhere; so, the protagonist mulls
that its continuous flow is full of vagueness, as none knows an answer to it.
While the noun “flow” in the second line brings to memory the flow of river,
the verb, “bound up”, makes it intrinsically connected with obscurity - a union
of the concrete and the abstract, because none is able to decipher the
insurability of its flow. Time is never constant or static; it is ever moving
ahead: what it is now, it moves ahead in the next movement. There is also an
adage associated with Time: ‘time and tide wait for none’. So, its speed is
closely associated with change. Hence, he finds that Time’s ever moving and
changing attribute has left indelible impression on the world’s “everything
living history”. Several civilizations have appeared and disappeared in this
world and each and every civilization has borne the burnt of time. The poet
tells here, in this stanza, about Time’s appearance from vacuity, its
mysterious and non-terminating flow or movement: it is ever moving for change,
because change is the law of Nature; as it is endemic in its nature and that
accounts for the change in the apparent world. Tennyson also writes about the
necessity of this change in his poem Morte d’
Arthur’.
The old order
changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils
Himself in many ways,
Lest one good
custom should corrupt the world. (lines 291-93)
The “old order”
does not signify only the established customary state of society, but also the
flow of time - thus “order” and “time” are relative to each other.
The second stanza
is about Time’s age, its ever-moving attribute, its speed without any hits of
any exhaustion. The poet portrays it as a traveller ever fresh and full of
energy:
The milestones
mark your age on the milkyway
It’s race on
wheels at a high pace
A wayfarer’s
journey without stay,
Yet no trace of
weariness on your face. (lines 5-8)
A living being
grows older day by day and ultimately reaches the end point - death. Time also
grows in age; however, it is marked “on the milky way” and never reaches its
death. While all other creations, animate or inanimate, have their life span
and are aged, Time is as old as the milky way. It does not walk, (the word,
“stepped” in the first line) instead, it races, moves very fast, “on wheels” at
a high speed. The poet brings in the vehicle of transport in his imagination -
the contemporary technology, which is also a change from the wooden wheel to
the present metallic wheel. With this change in the material of the wheel the
speed has also increased. Now the speed may be greater than the speed of escape
velocity with which the space scaling spaceships move away from the gravitation
pull of Earth. Then, it is likened to a traveller’s journey; rather, the Time
becomes a traveller, who keeps on moving and never halts for rest or to refresh
itself. How bizarre it is that despite its continuous journey, it doesn’t show
any sign of fatigue, an attribute of a non-living thing. While all living
beings feel tired after a long journey, but time has “no trace of weariness” on
its face or its limbs do not get lethargic contrary to human beings. Time knows
no sloth and lethargy.
The third stanza
shows Time’s destructive impact on all things, living or non0living of this
world.
You manifest
eroding powers in all circles
Even pliant limbs
and sharp mind grow decrepit
The petal-soft
countenance carves wrinkles.
The sculpture in a
quake breaks into many a bit. (lines 9-12)
As Time passes or
moves ahead minute-by-minute, day-by-day, year-by-year, its acerbic/destructive
effect - “eroding powers” - is visible on all, “in all circles”. The supple
body parts become inflexible; the sharpest minds lose their sharpness with the
passage of time and, eventually, become infirm and useless. It also manifests
its impact on human faces - beautiful or ugly, alike. Beautiful faces lose
their beauty and become ugly as wrinkles appear as Time advances. Youth changes
into old age. The artifacts carved out of stone and hard materials, supposed to
be long-lasting, cannot bear the onslaught of Time and during an earthquake are
broken into several pieces. Thus, Time spares none from its destructive effect.
It is friend to none. All fall prey to it.
The fourth stanza
describes Time’s varied attributes, e.g. movement, determination, appearance,
and speed:
You resemble a
river in its ceaseless glide
Your resolve is
like the planets’ orbit
You look like an
eternal traveller in his ride,
And travel like
the flash of light brightly lit. (lines 13-16)
The poet writes,
as if talking to Time standing before him as second person that is similar to a
river in its non-ending and smooth movement/flow. Its trait of being resolute
is as specific and determined as “planets’ orbit” - the fixed path of the movement
of heavenly bodies. If they lose their resoluteness, even for a fraction of a
second, then the cosmos may collapse. Everything is pre-determined in the
kinesis of time. Its unending journey makes it look “like an eternal traveller”
riding his horse or vehicle traveling with the speed of light. Time is never
lazy; so, it moves or travels with high speed: “like the flash of light
brightly lit”.
The fifth stanza,
the concluding one, tells that even the most intelligent ones are unable to
unveil Time’s enigma:
Five senses, in
strict governance of the mind
Fail to unravel
and charter your powerful role
Mysterious are
your ways to humankind.
Everything
manifests under your iron control. (lines 17-20)
The poet arrives
at the conclusion that a human being, who has five senses of sight, touch,
taste, smell, and hearing at his behest and under the full control of his mind,
finds himself helpless to decode and show Time’s “powerful role” in this world.
Time’s modus
operandi or ways of
operation in this world still remain unexplained and baffling to humanity.
Whatever happens does not fall beyond the control of time. Every change whether
micro or macro, is the outcome of Time’s strict rule, or its “iron control”.
In the views of
Mundra and Agarwal, “A useful analysis is almost always one which deals with a
good poem (not necessarily a great one) and shows exactly why and how it is to
be admired” (149). They also lay down that the reader should be free from any
prejudices and “presume to catch something of the poet’s vision”(149). My
interpretations of poems always tend to catch this “something of the poet’s
vision”.
The Development of Theme
The Poem is about
the mystery of Time. The poet has developed them in five stanzas using regular
rhyme scheme of ABAB in iambic pentameters with little variations. The poem
begins with the mysterious nature of Time that moves non-stop and is ever
changing. The thought, in the second stanza, develops making Time an eternal
traveller without showing any signs of tiredness. In the third stanza, the poet
makes Time all powerful that has destructive effect on everything of this
material world: beauty wanes, softness becomes rugged, and works of art get
destroyed. Fourth stanza reveals Time as a river moving noiselessly with a firm
resolve and travels very fast. The poet, in the fifth stanza, confirms Time’s
weirdness that even the most intelligent men are not able to know its position
and function. Human beings are only subject to Time’s stern control.
* * *
Syntax
I’ll try to study
the poem’s syntax in the first stanza only and leaving the other stanzas for
the readers to study themselves, because a direct involvement in the process
gives more enjoyment.
How you stepped
into this world is strange
Your endless flow
is bound up in mystery;
Your galloping
speed for incessant change
Left imprints in
every living history
It appears from
the given syntax that the stanza has one sentence only. A simple sentence, in
English, must have a subject, a verb, and an object. The first line: “How you
stepped into this world is strange”, has subject - “How you stepped into this
world”, verb - “is”, and subject complement - “strange”. Though generally the
subject and object in a sentence are nouns or noun phrases; but here the
subject is the manner and object is an adjective. It is the deviation that the
poet has wrought in his technique/style. It should have followed by a period,
thereby, making it a complete sentence. Similarly, the second line: “Your
endless flow” as subject, “is” as verb, and “bound up in mystery” as the
object. The third and fourth lines of this stanza make one sentence: “Your
galloping speed for incessant change / [has] Left imprints in every living
history.” Here “Your galloping speed for incessant change” is subject, [has]
left, a verb, and “imprints in every living history”, an object that is
followed by period. However, if we analyse the subjects and objects shown in
the lines/sentences of this stanza, they are subject to further scrutiny. For
example, the subject in the first line: “How you stepped into this world” can
be broken into six units (also called parsing): 1) “how” expressing manner, 2)
“you” second person singular pronoun, 3) stepped verb in past tense, 4) “into”
preposition denoting movement, 5) “this”, though demonstrative pronoun,
becomes/behaves as an adjective when used with a noun, 6) “world”.
It can be
rewritten as:
“How you stepped
into this world” [despite being a noun phrase, it is also a complete sentence]
1. How - a manner
word
2. You - pronoun
[second person singular]
3. stepped - verb
[past tense]
4. into -
preposition [shows the relationship of word/s preceding and following it]
5. this -
adjective [qualifying world], and
6. world - noun
and the subject
complement, “strange”, after the verb “is” is an adjective and leaves the
subject complement (here manner) understood.
If the poet had
used “How strange you stepped into this world”, that would have changed the
meaning of the sentence contrary to the poet’s intention. There are three ways
of writing this sentence:
1. How you stepped
into this world is strange. [as given in the poem]
2. How strange,
you stepped into this world! [It expresses woder at the stepping in of the
subject “you”.]
or
3. You stepped
into this world, how strange! [It expresses queerness of the subject coming
into this world.]
However, the poet
prefers the first one to match his argument. A linguist can similarly analyse
the syntax structure of the entire poem to understand the poem in a better way
and why the poet has used this kind of syntax.
Alliteration
The poet has used
assonance, similar vowel sounds in the fourth line of the first stanza e.g. /i/
sound in “Left imprints in every living history” at three different places of
the word/s: beginning, middle and end. The example of consonance, recurring
sound of a consonant, e.g. mark the nasal /m/ sound in the first line of the
second stanza, “The milestones mark your age on the milky way”; and /r/ sound
in the second line, “Fail to unravel and charter your powerful role”, of the
fifth stanza. A careful reader can still discern some more examples of it in
the poem. These, assonance and consonance, are the examples of alliteration,
though not strictly used in the beginning of a word or line.
Imagery
The poet has used
three phrases in the first stanza: “stepped into” in the first line, “endless
flow” in the second line and “galloping speed” in the third. The first phrase
is an image of a person walking steadily and gracefully; the second, “endless
flow”, is drawn from Nature, of a river flowing continuously; and, the third,
“galloping speed”, of the horse. His images in this stanza are all concrete.
In the second
stanza the image becomes a blend of the concrete and the abstract: “milestones
mark your age on the milky way”: “age on the milky way” is abstract - we can
only guess/imagine and neither touch nor see; and “milestones mark” is concrete
in the first line, and in the second line, “race on wheels”, is drawn from the
domain of technology. In the fourth stanza, the image, “planets’ orbit” in the
second line, is drawn from heavenly bodies, their imaginary but fixed route;
and the next image, “flash of light brightly lit” in the fourth line, from the
light to express its high speed, is also abstract.
Metaphor and Smile
Metaphor is a
poetic device to make the thing/object look like the one with which it is
compared. There is no apparent example of metaphor in the poem.
The poem starts,
addressing time with reference to its invincible powers as it is not an
abstract idea but a moving force. We are bound to concur with time’s powers
that conquer all in its flow. “Stepped into” indicates speedy and steady
movement and the preposition ‘into’ also expresses the idea of motion.
To capture the
reader’s attention the poet uses smiles instead of metaphors.
Here his use of
smiles is very apt, carrying immediate effect on the minds of readers. In some
other contexts metaphors are more suitable. Through the use of a smile, a poet
makes a comparison with some other relevant object and is introduced by the
words - “like” and/or “as”, e.g. in the fourth stanza:
Your resolve is
like the planets’ orbit
You look like an
eternal traveller in his ride,
And travel like
the flash of light brightly lit.
Here, the poet
first compares Time’s resolve with the Planets’ path in the heavens; Time, in
second line above, is compared with a traveller; and, in the third line, Time’s
speed is compared to that of the light.
Symbols:
The poet uses
symbols in a unique way for poetic effect: ‘The Milky way’ is a symbol to stand
for the permanent sojourn of time and ‘Pliant limbs’ and ‘petal soft
countenance’ are symbolic of the physical, temporal and ephemeral in nature.
‘Sharp mind’ is symbolic of mental and psychological nature. ‘Quake’ symbolizes
the element of devastation, and disruption in time’s ceaseless fleet. ‘Living
river’ is symbolic of time in incessant flow. ‘Five senses in the control of
mind’ are symbolic of the five elements in the control of Time (as the five
Pandavas, the warriors, are in the guidance of Lord Krishna). ‘Mind’ that is
never static is symbolic of Time. Finally, ‘Iron control’ stands for the
merciless and relentless nature of time to devastate and disrupt all in its
flow.
To conclude, it is
the mysterious nature of time that appeals to the reader in the very first
reading and the poet has very aptly, cogently, and coherently developed this
theme in the poem. The tone remains throughout one of astute surprise. A
reader, through such an analysis of the poem, arrives at the core of “the
poet’s vision”, tone, and meaning conveyed in the poem beside deriving pleasure
from it that is the sole object of writing poetry. It also informs and
enlightens the reader; and, thus, adds to his repertoire of knowledge.
Works Cited
Chelliah, Dr. S.
“Philip Larkin’s Concept of Time as Projected in his Poetry: A Brief Analysis.”
IJRAR - International Journal of Research and Analytical Reviews, vol. 3, issue
2, April - June 2016, pp. 1-5. https://ijrar.com/upload_issue/ijrar_issue_263.pdf
May, Brian,
Patrick Moore, Chris Lintott. BANG! The
Complete History of the Universe. Carlton Books
Limited, 2006.
Mundra, S.C and
S.C. Agarwal. Practical
Criticism. Prakash Book
Depot, 1971
Rajamouly, Dr. K.
“Time.” Cherished
Cherries: A Collection of Nine Anthologies. New Delhi: Author Press, 2016, 00. 122.
Tennyson, Alfred.
“Morte d’ Arthur.” In
Memoriam, Maud and other poems, edited with
Introduction by John D. Jump. J. M. Dent & sons Ltd, 1974.
Wikipedia - A
Brief History of Time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time)
