Pestilence in Nineteenth-Century Calcutta
Keki N. Daruwalla
Summary of the Poem
Keki N. Daruwalla is a famous Indian Parsi poet in English who has been noted for the vigour and immediacy of language and his indignant cynicism about the predicament of human society. Pestilence in Nineteenth-Century Calcutta is about a tragic event , an outbreak of Cholera which occurred in the history of Bengal. He takes us through the responses of the different communities to the horror of painful death. According to Bijay Kumar Das , "Social satire , an awareness of the contemporary situations , the illusion about myths seem to be some of the favourite themes of Daruwalla". In this poem the poet speaks about the tragic suffering of the people in Calcutta when it was stricken with cholera during the 19 th century,
In the first stanza the poet introduces us to the tragic situation in which the people were painfully dying due to cholera. The poem begins with a barber’s comment to his white Sahib 'Black fellow die, much' which is totally ironic. The line sarcastically reminds us of the servile attitude of the colonized to the white colonizer. The people in the ghettoes died a horrible painful death and the funeral pyres burnt incessantly.
In the second stanza the poet paints the picture of a typical colonizer who is equally trapped along with the natives in suffering the ravages of the epidemic. The sahib is totally shocked. The whole land he felt was pregnant with the germs of cholera. What terrified him was the way it affected the whites. They died like skittles, and were buried in the same strange land in which the natives were buried .
In the third stanza the poet tells us how nature had also turned against humans and abetted their death. The hot climate gave way to sudden rains and the exhalation of the earth rapidly spread the fever and the fluxes which was soon followed by death. What was tragic was that the deaths were sudden and unpredictable. One may lunch with a person in the afternoon by evening the news would arrive that he had died.
In the fourth stanza the poet tells us how the epidemic affected the whites and how they reacted against it. The poet feels it affected the white colonizers more than the natives. They were so frightened the poet tells us that they carried the fear of death like a “slipped disc through their lives”. They tried all sorts of medicines and treatments to protect themselves from the epidemic. The poet sarcastically draws up a list of the remedies they sought. They paid one mohur for a visit to the surgeon. They had to pay one rupee for an ounce of salts, two rupees for an ounce of bark, They had to pay extra for being leeched and to be blistered with hot irons, They also fed on opium and mercurous chloride to prevent themselves from cholera.
In the fifth stanza the poet takes us back to the sahib. The sahib reflects about the long years he had spent in India working in the John Company. All those years he had never thought of death. He had always felt that Death came with his scythe only in the ghettoes where the natives lived. He had never thought that such horrible diseases could also affect the whites until the barber told him that day about the ravages of cholera and how it was affecting the natives. Ten days later he went to Hooghly for his winter tour. That day he learnt that the Sardar who had served him during the bara hazri was stricken with cholera. By evening he died. The White sahib was moved. He offered to meet the funeral expenses of the Sardar. Next day along with his breakfast he received a bill which made him blink “It read,/
"Five rupees for roasted Sardar”
Answer each of the following in a sentence or two:
1. What is the significance of the first line of ‘Pestilence in Nineteenth-Century Calcutta’?
The first line of the poem directly takes us to the satiric drama that is unfolded in the poem. Its significance lies in its sarcastic revelation of the attitude of one Indian to another during the Britsh Raj and also the Sahib’s barber’attitude towards the unfortunate fellow people living beyond the esplanade.
2. What does the poet mean by” the dead went up”?
The people affected with cholera died in great numbers. The corpses were cremated with very few liturgies. The pyres burnt higher and higher and the poet refers to the smoke going up as the dead going up as the corpses were reduced to smoke and ash.
.3. What was the sahib’s last favour to the Sardar who had served under him?
The sahib’s last favour to the Sardar was his offer to meet the sardar’s funeral expenses. He felt sad that the man who had served him during the bara hazri had so easily become a victim of cholera.
Answer each of the following in about 100 words:
1. What all things did the whites do in order to escape from cholera?
The whites were so frightened of death that they did everything in their power to escape from cholera. They paid one gold mohur for a visit to the surgeon, one rupee for an ounce of salt, two rupees for an ounce of bark. They paid the native medicine men for blood letting with leech and blistering with hot irons. And they even went to the extend of feeding themselves on opiums and mercurous chlorides. Thus the whites turned to many remedies to save themselves from cholera
2. What was the fate of the Sikh abdar who had served under the sahib?
The poem Pestilence … is a sarcastic criticism tinged with pathos about pestilence stricken Calcutta. In the last stanza he describes the death of a sick abdar. Ten days after the Sahib’s barber informed him of the pestilence which was killing without discrimination the white people and the natives the Sahib went to Hooghly for his usual winter tour. There he was shocked to learn one morning that a Sikh abdar who had served him during the Bara hazri days had fallen ill. By evening his native servant informed him that the abdar had succumbed to cholera and died. The Sahib was visibly moved by the fate of the abdar and he offered to meet the abdar’s funeral expenses.
3. How does the climate abet the spread of cholera?
The poem Pestilence… delineates in a tone tinged with sarcasm, humour and pathos the fate of the people who were killed without discrimination by the ravaging pestilence, cholera during the British Raj. According to the poet even nature abetted the sway of the contagious disease. The climate was all too favourable for the spread of the disease. It was not the hot sun which was the culprit. It was the rain that came after the heat which killed the people. The ‘vaporous exhalations’ of the earth after the rains brought on the fevers and fluxes. And it all happened suddenly. In the afternoon one would be lunching with a person but by dusk one comes to know he had died. This really terrified the English people.
Keki N. Daruwalla
Summary of the Poem
Keki N. Daruwalla is a famous Indian Parsi poet in English who has been noted for the vigour and immediacy of language and his indignant cynicism about the predicament of human society. Pestilence in Nineteenth-Century Calcutta is about a tragic event , an outbreak of Cholera which occurred in the history of Bengal. He takes us through the responses of the different communities to the horror of painful death. According to Bijay Kumar Das , "Social satire , an awareness of the contemporary situations , the illusion about myths seem to be some of the favourite themes of Daruwalla". In this poem the poet speaks about the tragic suffering of the people in Calcutta when it was stricken with cholera during the 19 th century,
In the first stanza the poet introduces us to the tragic situation in which the people were painfully dying due to cholera. The poem begins with a barber’s comment to his white Sahib 'Black fellow die, much' which is totally ironic. The line sarcastically reminds us of the servile attitude of the colonized to the white colonizer. The people in the ghettoes died a horrible painful death and the funeral pyres burnt incessantly.
In the second stanza the poet paints the picture of a typical colonizer who is equally trapped along with the natives in suffering the ravages of the epidemic. The sahib is totally shocked. The whole land he felt was pregnant with the germs of cholera. What terrified him was the way it affected the whites. They died like skittles, and were buried in the same strange land in which the natives were buried .
In the third stanza the poet tells us how nature had also turned against humans and abetted their death. The hot climate gave way to sudden rains and the exhalation of the earth rapidly spread the fever and the fluxes which was soon followed by death. What was tragic was that the deaths were sudden and unpredictable. One may lunch with a person in the afternoon by evening the news would arrive that he had died.
In the fourth stanza the poet tells us how the epidemic affected the whites and how they reacted against it. The poet feels it affected the white colonizers more than the natives. They were so frightened the poet tells us that they carried the fear of death like a “slipped disc through their lives”. They tried all sorts of medicines and treatments to protect themselves from the epidemic. The poet sarcastically draws up a list of the remedies they sought. They paid one mohur for a visit to the surgeon. They had to pay one rupee for an ounce of salts, two rupees for an ounce of bark, They had to pay extra for being leeched and to be blistered with hot irons, They also fed on opium and mercurous chloride to prevent themselves from cholera.
In the fifth stanza the poet takes us back to the sahib. The sahib reflects about the long years he had spent in India working in the John Company. All those years he had never thought of death. He had always felt that Death came with his scythe only in the ghettoes where the natives lived. He had never thought that such horrible diseases could also affect the whites until the barber told him that day about the ravages of cholera and how it was affecting the natives. Ten days later he went to Hooghly for his winter tour. That day he learnt that the Sardar who had served him during the bara hazri was stricken with cholera. By evening he died. The White sahib was moved. He offered to meet the funeral expenses of the Sardar. Next day along with his breakfast he received a bill which made him blink “It read,/
"Five rupees for roasted Sardar”
Answer each of the following in a sentence or two:
1. What is the significance of the first line of ‘Pestilence in Nineteenth-Century Calcutta’?
The first line of the poem directly takes us to the satiric drama that is unfolded in the poem. Its significance lies in its sarcastic revelation of the attitude of one Indian to another during the Britsh Raj and also the Sahib’s barber’attitude towards the unfortunate fellow people living beyond the esplanade.
2. What does the poet mean by” the dead went up”?
The people affected with cholera died in great numbers. The corpses were cremated with very few liturgies. The pyres burnt higher and higher and the poet refers to the smoke going up as the dead going up as the corpses were reduced to smoke and ash.
.3. What was the sahib’s last favour to the Sardar who had served under him?
The sahib’s last favour to the Sardar was his offer to meet the sardar’s funeral expenses. He felt sad that the man who had served him during the bara hazri had so easily become a victim of cholera.
Answer each of the following in about 100 words:
1. What all things did the whites do in order to escape from cholera?
The whites were so frightened of death that they did everything in their power to escape from cholera. They paid one gold mohur for a visit to the surgeon, one rupee for an ounce of salt, two rupees for an ounce of bark. They paid the native medicine men for blood letting with leech and blistering with hot irons. And they even went to the extend of feeding themselves on opiums and mercurous chlorides. Thus the whites turned to many remedies to save themselves from cholera
2. What was the fate of the Sikh abdar who had served under the sahib?
The poem Pestilence … is a sarcastic criticism tinged with pathos about pestilence stricken Calcutta. In the last stanza he describes the death of a sick abdar. Ten days after the Sahib’s barber informed him of the pestilence which was killing without discrimination the white people and the natives the Sahib went to Hooghly for his usual winter tour. There he was shocked to learn one morning that a Sikh abdar who had served him during the Bara hazri days had fallen ill. By evening his native servant informed him that the abdar had succumbed to cholera and died. The Sahib was visibly moved by the fate of the abdar and he offered to meet the abdar’s funeral expenses.
3. How does the climate abet the spread of cholera?
The poem Pestilence… delineates in a tone tinged with sarcasm, humour and pathos the fate of the people who were killed without discrimination by the ravaging pestilence, cholera during the British Raj. According to the poet even nature abetted the sway of the contagious disease. The climate was all too favourable for the spread of the disease. It was not the hot sun which was the culprit. It was the rain that came after the heat which killed the people. The ‘vaporous exhalations’ of the earth after the rains brought on the fevers and fluxes. And it all happened suddenly. In the afternoon one would be lunching with a person but by dusk one comes to know he had died. This really terrified the English people.