Attempt a brief critical appreciation of the join Sea Breeze, Bombay.

Ans.

Adil Jussawalla’s poem Sea Breeze, Bombay, though not an outstanding composition in his collection, is remarkable chiefly because it is the first to highlight the misery and plight of those homeless and lonely people who had been uprooted from their homelands. They were forced to leave their original homes and had no option but to search for a new habitation. In the opinion of the poet, Bombay seemed to be the safest for them and they reached there in large number. This is an outstanding post colonial poem and the credit of starting this genre in Indo Anglian poetry goes to him. He is the first to poetize the wound of partition though undoubtedly, as in this poem, he is confined only to a few things but his internal pain at this unfortunate incident is certainly well realized.

The whole poem is wrought with deep pathos and these touches continue throughout. The first expression used for these people uprooted from their native ancestral land is very touching when the poet talks about them:

Partition’s people stitched

Shoulders from a flag, gentlemen scissored Sind.

They have been likened to something cut away and then joined again in the city of Bombay like a knot ‘reknotted themselves on this island’. It shows their helplessness because they have no other option and nowhere else to go for shelter and safety. The most pathetic is the picture of the Tibetans who reach there after covering long distances.

Scanning the sea from the north,

Dazed, holes in their cracked feet.

He sings of the atmosphere of Bombay which accepted all these unknown people where “communities tear and reform’ but they are never discarded. It is another thing that these migrants have not brought any change in the city and its activities go on as usual. The breeze and evenings are the same and the poet closes the poem with the faith that there ‘settles no one adrift of the mainland’s histories.’ He also points out that this island is both attached and detached from the main land and it has played an important role in the post-independence India because it became the safest home for the waves, migrants who have flocked to it for refuge and sustenance. The refrain ‘restore us to fire’ reminds us of the fact that Jussawalla was a Parsi who considers fire to be very pious. It is thus a very touching poem full of tragic pathos and controlled anger at the fate of India.

The language of the poem is graceful, though devoid of any unnecessary embellishment. Sometimes, when the poet feels deeply pained, it is expressed through images like partitioned people stitched and scissored Sind. However, we do not find any ambiguity anywhere and understand the feelings of the poet in the first reading. Still, it does not hold a very prominent place among his poetic productions but we cannot reject it as simply trivial since it is representative of the poet’s patriotic zeal and humanitarian attitude.