Small-scale Reflections on a Great House | Poem by by A. K. Ramanujan | Explanation

Small Scale Reflections on a Great House - A.K. Ramanujan: Summary

Key Concepts: Ancestral home, nostalgia, Indian culture, Western detachment, tradition vs. modernity, joint family, colonial exploitation, cyclical return, cultural identity.

Introduction

The poem "Small Scale Reflections on a Great House" by A.K. Ramanujan is analyzed. Ramanujan's background as a poet, folklorist, critic, and translator is briefly mentioned, emphasizing his long-term residence in the USA as a professor at the University of Chicago. This experience shaped his perspective, leading to a fusion of native Indian culture with a Westerner's detachment in his works. His poetry often exhibits a unique blend of tradition and modernity, rooted in Indian experiences but with a transnational outlook and an anti-sentimental approach.

The House as a Retaining Force

The poem begins with the idea that the ancestral house retains everything that enters it. "Sometimes I think that nothing that ever comes into this house goes out." Objects and people become permanently embedded within its walls, lost among things lost long ago. This reflects a common Indian tendency to cling to objects and avoid decluttering.

Example: The speaker relates this to personal experiences with grandparents and parents who hoard items, contrasting it with decluttering advice to discard unused items.

List of Inclusions: Living and Inanimate

The poem provides a detailed list of things that enter the house and never leave.

• Living Things: Lame wandering cows are taken in, named, and encouraged to breed under the elders' supervision, with young girls secretly observing. "Lame wandering cows from nowhere have been known to be tethered, given a name, encouraged to get pregnant in the broad daylight of the street under the Elder supervision, the girls hiding behind windows with holes in them."
• Inanimate Things: Unread library books accumulate fines and become breeding grounds for silverfish in the old man's office, feeding on Victorian parchment. "And unread library books usually mature in 2 weeks and begin to lay your row of little legs in the ledgers for fines as silverfish in the old man's office room office room breed dynasties among long legal words in the succulents of Victorian parchment."
• Social Connections: Neighbors' dishes brought with greasy sweets for religious anniversaries are rarely returned. Servants, phonographs, and genetic predispositions like epilepsies also become permanent fixtures. "Neighbors dishes brought up with the greasy sweets they made all night the day before yesterday for the wedding anniversary of a God never leave the house they enter like the servants the phonographs the epilepsies in the blood the sons-in-law who quite forget their mothers but stay to Check accounts or teach arithmetic to NES."
• Family Dynamics: Sons-in-law from less affluent families stay to manage accounts or tutor nieces. Daughters-in-law from traditional homes are expected to assimilate completely. "From houses open to on one side to Rising Suns on another to the setting."

The Cyclical Nature of Returns

The poem then shifts to the idea that anything that leaves the house eventually returns, often transformed and with added costs.

• Colonial Exploitation: Cotton shipped to "Invisible manchesters" (referencing textile factories in Manchester, England) returns as expensive cloth. "And also anything that goes out will come back processed and often with long bills attached like the hooped bales of cotton shipped off to Invisible manchesters and brought back mil and folded for a price cloth for a days middle class loins and muslin for a richer nights." This is a critique of colonial economic practices.
• Misdirected Communication: Letters mailed often return with multiple redirections and red ink marks, symbolizing failed attempts to connect. "Where letters mailed have a way of finding their way back with many redirections to wrong addresses and red ink marks earned in tiala and seal Cod." Place names like "tiala" (likely Thella in Kerala) and "seal Cod" (likely Sialkot in Pakistan) are mentioned, possibly referencing family members who migrated and eventually returned.
• Evolving Ideas: Ideas, like rumors, originate within the house, spread, and return in altered forms. The speaker references an uncle's statement linking the Greek philosopher Platinus to Alexander the Great's looting of Eastern knowledge. "And ideas behave like rumors once casually mentioned somewhere they come back to the door as prodigies bond to prodigal fathers with eyes that vaguely look like our own like what uncle said the other day that every plot iners we read is what some Alexander loed between the malarial rivers."

The Return of People

The poem explores the return of family members under various circumstances.

• Social Outcasts: Daughters married to "shock lived idiots" (a derogatory term for brothers-in-law) return. Widowed daughters also come back.
• Prodigal Sons: Sons who run away return with grandchildren who impress the elders with their Sanskrit recitations. "Nothing stays out daughters get married to shli OTS."
• Family Legacy: Grandchildren bring beetle nuts for visiting uncles who share anecdotes about their unseen fathers.
• Final Return: Sons return with Ganges water for dying ancestors.

The Ultimate Return: Death

The poem acknowledges the return of family members as corpses.

• Tragic Losses: The speaker mentions two instances: one in 1943, with a body recovered from the Sahara, and another more recently, with a nephew killed on the border and returned with military honors. "And though many times from everywhere recently only twice once in 1943 from as far as a Sahara half Ned by desert foxes and lately from somewhere in the north a nephew with stripes on shoulder was called an incident on the border and was brought back in plane and train and military truck even before the telegrams reached on a perfectly good chaty afternoon."

Conclusion

The poem captures the essence of Indian family life, particularly within ancestral homes. While Ramanujan attempts to maintain a detached, Western perspective, a sense of nostalgia for a disappearing past is evident. The poem resonates with older generations who have experienced joint family life and its associated traditions. The speaker expresses hope that the analysis has conveyed the spirit of the poem to the listeners.