Nissim Ezekiel was an Indian-conceived author of Jewish plummet. He has been portrayed as the father of post-independence Indian poetry in English. He had various assortments of verse distributed which were well known. A few, for example, ‘The Night of the Scorpion’, and the counter patriotism sonnet ‘The Patriot’, are standard stanzas despite everything concentrated in some British and Indian schools.
He had a fluctuated profession as an English instructor in India, England, and the United States. He composed plays, filled in as a supporter on Indian radio, and contributed numerous basic articles to the literary segments of magazines and papers.
Ezekiel was conceived in December 1924 in Mumbai. The family lived in a Marathi-talking network known as the “Bene Israel.” It had approximately 20,000 occupants around then. Not at all like different networks far and wide this was a quiet spot with no proof of anti-Semitism to stress over. They were a generally princely family with his father being a teacher of Botany at the Wilson College in Mumbai. His mother served as the Principal of the school that she had set up.
Nissim was knowledgeable and had a specific preference for the verse of, for example, T S Eliot and Ezra Pound. He could do without stanza in his own language and, as he grew up, his composing pulled in the discussion. It was viewed as excessively near the old provincial impacts by numerous radicals in India. He went to Wilson College and he increased a degree in writing and quickly began teaching English Literature.
India was, strategically, a hotbed of movement around then and he took a functioning enthusiasm for a brief period yet before long chose to venture out to England by ship. He went through the following three years examining theory at Birkbeck College in London, living in a low standard settlement. Afterward, he came back to India. He served in India and continued publishing his books. He received a Padma Shri award from the government of India for his services for literature.
A Short Biography of Nissim Ezekiel
Nissim Ezekiel was born on December 16th, 1924. He was born in Mumbai in Maharashtra, India. His father served as a Professor at Wilson College. He would teach Botany. His mother served as Principal of that school. This was her own school. His family basically belonged to the Jewish Community. This community was called Bene Israel. Their language was Marathi.
He completed his B.A. in 1947. His subject was Literature. He completed it from Wilson College, Mumbai. This was under the affiliation of Bombay University. Afterward, he started teaching English literature. He also started publishing literary articles in various journals and papers. During the partition of the Subcontinent in India and Pakistan, he went to England. There he completed his degree in Philosophy from Birkbeck College, London. He stayed for three years in England. Afterward, he returned to India. He was deck-scrubber on a ship that was carrying arms to Indochina.
He published his book ‘The Bad Day’ in 1952. In 1960, he published another book of poetry. It was titled ‘The Deadly man.’ From 1954 to 1959, he served as a general manager and advertising copywriter for a picture frame company. In 1961, he established a monthly magazine ‘Jumpo.’ In 1961, he also became the head of the English department at Mithibai College in Bombay. He served there till 1972.
In 1965, he published his next book of poetry. This was titled ‘The Exact Name.’ During this phase of his career in 1964, he also served as a visiting professor at the University of Leeds. In 1967, he was appointed as a visiting professor at the University of Pondicherry.
In 1969, he published his play ‘The Damn Plays.’ 1076, he translated the poetry of Jawaharlal Nehru to the Marathi language. His poetry was in English. Ezekiel`s poems are used in the course books of classes to be studied as study material in various parts of India.
He is called the father of Modern Indian English Poetry. In 1988, he was awarded the Padma Shri award by the then president of India.
He suffered for a very long time with Alzheimer’s disease. He fought with but lost to it and succumbed to death in 2004. At the time of death, he was 79 years old. He died in Mumbai.
Nissim Ezekiel’s Writing Style
Technique and Style
Ezekiel is the first Indo-Anglican artist to show reliably that craftsmanship is as essential to a poetic work as its topic. He doesn’t respect the composition of a poem as an easygoing issue. As per him, the composition of a poem includes a great deal of drudge. He says that we should work to be delightful.
In one of his sonnets, Ezekiel is of the view that the best writers hang tight for words. He views a sonnet as a natural, coordinated piece. In this way, the structure, the form, the words, and the expressions utilized by him become significant and a matter of imperative concern.
His Language
Ezekiel is practical in the utilization of language. He has faith in lucidity, economy, and unequivocal quality. He has been receiving a conversational style. The effortlessness and conversational simplicity make his verse vital. The continuous utilization of a casual figure of speech gives to his poetic work a fine mix of the clearness of articulation and cogency of contention.
Lack of clarity is deliberately kept away from by the artist and magnificence and exposed state of articulation are regularly amalgamated together. His poem ‘The Egoist’s Prayers’ shows his idyllic language at its best.
His Use of Words
Ezekiel shows a sharp feeling of structure and form and an exceptional concern for the utilization of the correct words in the right places. Words are picked cautiously by him. The economy and precision in the utilization of words are laudable. His words are exceptionally interesting. He utilizes words from the normal regular jargon. He disregards the utilization of antiquated words. He makes a fine lovely impact by mixing sense and sound. The utilization of contemporary saying grants effortlessness, clarity, and lucidity of articulation to Ezekiel’s lovely style.
His Use of Wit and Irony
Ezekiel is famous for his rich comical inclination and for the sharpness of his mind and incongruity. In a significant number of his poetic works, he has scorned the absurdities and indiscretions of the Indian individuals. For this reason, he has utilized silliness and incongruity as his central weapons.
In his poetic works like ‘Farewell Party For Miss Pushpa’, ‘The Railway Clerk’ and ‘The Healers and Guru’ one can without much of a stretch discover Ezekiel’s funniness, mind, and incongruity. Consequently, there is an enormous reserve of funniness, mind, and incongruity in Ezekiel’s verse.
His Use of Symbol and Imagery
Nissim Ezekiel utilizes profoundly reminiscent and intriguing images and pictures in his verse. Through these embellishment devices, he makes the theoretical abstract. The ladies, the city, and nature are repeating images in his verse. Slopes, waterways, winds, skies, sun, and downpours are likewise some significant pictures.
With the assistance of these normal pictures, Ezekiel dexterously brings out a realistic image of human life. Ezekiel’s best poetic works have an indefinable pictorial quality. They show a conspicuous liking for the visual expressions. For example ‘In India’ the artist has given us distinctive pictures of Bombay.
Stylistic Freewheeling
This stylistic freewheeling is normal for practically all of his poetical works. In the event that he has utilized profoundly expressive and telling expressions in his works, he has likewise slipped by in ‘The Exact Name into Shelleyian’ deliberations like fantasies of light or rest strolling broadcasting in real-time of thought.
He additionally double-crosses energy for utilizing concentrated expressions, which are allegorical in nature, and institute the focal weight of the sonnet plainly. In ‘The Double Horror’ the writer discusses wilderness development. It passes on the extraordinary increment of the modem degenerate world. While alluding to sexual relationships in ‘Paean’ he discusses the geometry of affection.
So, taking everything into account he causes us to notice ‘The epic of strolling in the road’. The utilization of articulations ”wilderness’, ‘geometry’, and ‘epic’ is profoundly interesting. In the previous works likewise happened such expressions as anecdotes of heck, happy amazement, and lasting daybreak.
Length of Sentences
The utilization of sentence length is a measurable quality of style. Ezekiel has kept up that sentence length is significantly more under a creator’s control while word lengths are progressively demonstrative of the nature and soul of the language. The majority of his sentences are simply basic.
He composed longer sentences when he made works contained in ‘The Exact Name’. At that point comes an adjustment in his style. The sentences of ‘Hymns in Darkness’ are around 2/3 long when contrasted with those of ‘The Exact Name’. ‘In Latter-Day Psalms’ the sentences are even shorter.
The prose verse of Ezekiel frames a group of writing somewhat extraordinarily in contemporary Indian writing in English. The sentences in Ezekiel’s composition poetic works are not of uniform length. Now and again they are sufficiently short to comprise of only a single word each as exemplified by a portion of the “sentences” in “The Prophet”.
His Use of Similes
Ezekiel’s similes can be partitioned into two gatherings: those in which the tenor is more concrete than the vehicle and the other way around. A case of the previous is the metaphor in “Squirrel,” where the correlation is between the squirrel and an idea. A coordinated flick of dim and earthy colored/And he is gone, similar to an idea. Others remember the one for “Subject of Change.” “The waves/Rise and fall like bad dream graves/that can’t hold their dead”.
Instances of comparisons in which the vehicle is more concrete than the tenor remember the likeness for “A Morning Walk”: “His past resembles a sloppy pool.” In “Master”: “dropping our indiscretions/like old garments.”
Thus Ezekiel is an incredible and skilled poet. He is the most adaptable artist in India. He tests perpetually with structure and art. He is regarded for the somberness of his craft, for the effortlessness and conversational simplicity of his language, and for the economy and precision in the utilization of words. The greatness of his symbolism and the sharpness of his mind and incongruity are additionally lauded.
