Notes on Exciting Views


Exciting views
(With all credits to the author K.D. Sebastian and the translator Dr. B. Kerala Varma)

Notes

K.D. Sebastian’s ‘Exciting views’ is a poem on two states or two kinds of lives. Two views are juxtaposed so as to make them poignantly realistic. The basic scenario is the appealing backwaters, peopled with insignificant lives. This life is set up against the opulent tourists. The movement of the poem is highly symbolic. It begins with the inanimate boats leading us to the human beings who survive in muddy waters.


The boats have become dilapidated. They are now rendered useless owing to mechanistic view of modern life and better options of connectivity. They lie half submerged and they await a burial on the bank of the backwaters. They have lost their utility. The murky pool of water around them is used by human beings to bathe, drink and excrete. The boat now remains a mute witness to the uncivilized ways of man. The human beings find themselves a waste.

However, a few boats have transformed themselves into houseboats carrying tourists. These tourists amuse themselves with a special spectacle at close quarters through binoculars. They are thrilled at the ‘calm night’ and ‘still waters’. They record their enthusiasm and unbridled spirit of joy in the diary. They see “the burial ground of boats” and “humans just like fishes in muddy water”.  They do not realize that they themselves owe a lot in creating such a havoc in such ecologically sensitive areas. Their shallow minds do not comprehend the truth behind the predicament of poor people.  



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