“The Ghaghra in Spate”

- Keki N. Daruwalla

This poem is taken from the collection “Under Orion”. The title “The Ghaghra in
Spate” suggests a river overflowing due to a sudden flood. The title itself gives the core idea
of the poem. The poem is not about the beauty of the river but the havoc it wreaks on the
people, which strikes almost every year, and the ways in which they struggle to cope up with
the crisis.
Daruwalla’s poems are remarkable for their modernity. The main themes of his poetry are
related to contemporary modern India. In this poem, Daruwalla interprets the river’s
destructive mood in human terms. He has described the river scene by scene in three stages-
before the flood, during the flood and after the flood. The mood of the poem changes with the
images of panic the river create at night as it gushes into homes. The poet has described a
disastrous situation in an impersonal and objective manner. “the river” is a symbol of life, but
there is also a horrific form. Generally, it stands for a principle of change and continuity but
becomes disastrous when it changes its form.
The poem is written in free verse. There are seven stanzas in the poem of varying
length and shape which show how the poet could find suitable forms to express his feelings.
Stanza I
In this stanza, the poet describes the silent nature of the river Ghaghra. The poem begins in a
calm mood. The poet says that the river Ghaghra changes its course by flowing smoothly, it
turns over, and over and there is no stoppage. The poet depicts the river’s habit, and tells that
thriver changes its direction every year. He further says that even in her sleep, it continues to
flow. As human beings change their position while sleeping, in the same way, the river
Ghaghra changes its flowing direction. Now the poet describes the changing colour of the
water with the changes in the time of day. In the afternoon, the colour of its water becomes
grey, a smudge and explores the grey canvas. The shadow of trees and sky make the colour of
water grey. The poet has compared the water’s surface with the canvas of a painting, and
water is like a careless stroke of a paintbrush on that canvas. When the sun sets and clouds
overhang in the sky, the Ghaghra looks like overstewed coffee. Again, the poet has compared
the colour of water with overstewed coffee. And at night, the Ghaghra river becomes like a
red bruise on the land, because of its zigzag shape. The red light reflected on the river means
something is abnormal. The river looks like a red weal that lies across the land. Thus, the poet
says that the river is the spine of the land.
Comments
1. Personification: the river Ghaghra has been personified as a woman
2. Metaphor: the river is described as “grey smudge in the afternoon”, and overstewed
coffee” and “a red weal/across the spine of land”
3. Poet has used the term ‘grey smudge’ to show the vague blur atmosphere made by the
river overflow, water and land, and the cloudy sky with the Dusk.
4. ‘Overstewed Coffee’ is another phrase that the poet has used to express the river’s
horror. ‘Stewed’ comes from the Middle English word “stewe”, which means heated
room. Also, Stew means food cooked slowly in a closed pan. Here the river’s picture
is like a “Coffee that’s cooked/ heated slowly in a closed pot”. It can be seen that
clouds overhangs above the river like smokes from a hot coffee, and the water keeps
spilling like the coffee does when it’s boiled.
5. Alliteration: “changes course”,
6. The poem is written in free verse. Therefore, there is no rhyme scheme in the poem.
Stanza II
The second stanza tells about the moment at the very end of astronomical twilight,
just before total darkness. It is hard to understand that there’s a flood ‘on’ because the
darkness has already spread; thus, the river water and landscape are tough to distinguish. It is
the evening time, and the Ghaghra river flows in its rhythm, but no one knows there is a flood
‘on’. The poet describes superbly the equipoised landscape as- rice shoots pricking through a
stretch of water and light spiked shadows, inverted trees (inverted image of trees on the
surface of the water), kingfishers, gulls. As the evening gets darker, the river seems like as a
road stretch running between the starts.
Comments
1. The stanza is full of visual imagery. Using very few words, Daruwalla succeeded in
evoking a vast image of the river in the reader’s mind.
2. Alliteration: “Driving at dusk”, “so superbly”, “rice shoots”, “spiked shadows”.
3. Use of cobbnsonance sound in this stanza.
4. Use of urban diction.
5. The poet has used straightforward and simple words in this stanza to convey the
meaning except for the word “equipoised”, which means balanced. The river water
and landscape area feels balanced and gives a view of a plain area.
Stanza III
 In this stanza, the poet suddenly presents a terrible vision of the river. He tells what
happens when suddenly the river water reaches on living land. Suddenly, at night the north
(rain) comes to the village on river-back. The flood begins from the north and it comes to the
river. Water in the river starts spinning like a violent ocean and turns to phantasmal. The term
“Phantasmal” is referred to as the ghost-like frightening appearance of the river. The
phantasmal river took half of the street into its belly. Here the poet uses the
term ‘churning’ in the river-belly. Churning is the process of shaking milk in a machine to
produce butter. But here, the churning is used to show how horribly the river took the land
into the water. It feels as if only voices could be heard, and only limbs could turn the rafted
bamboo. The last two lines of the stanza shows out the river’s relentless fury and man’s
unequal fight with the tragic situation for their survival. Rafted bamboo is a ferry like setting
made using bamboo for travelling on the water.
Comment
1. The poet has given a frightful view of the flood.
2. Alliteration: “light lamps”, “turn to rafted”.
Stanza IV
In this stanza, the poet further describes the situation during the flood. He says that as
the River Ghaghra overflows through the village, it changes its shape by flowing through
every small street. The roofs of straw and dung-cakes turned into river-scum. Scum means a
mass of tiny bubbles seen in the river bank. Dung-cakes are made from the by-products of
animal husbandry and are traditionally used as fuel in India to make food, called a
Chulha. Daruwalla turns our attention to the pathetic situation of a buffalo, which floats over
to the rooftop where men are taking shelter. The buffalo has three days of hunger; her udders
have turned red and swollen with milk-extortion.
Comments
1. The line “And through the village/the Ghaghra steers her course” is the different form
of “And every year/the Ghaghra changes course” in the first stanza. Now in this
stanza, the poet has compared the directions of Ghaghra river, which it makes during
a year and here the directions in every street. The beautiful river has taken the shape
of a disaster which is ready to destroy everything.
2. Assonance in the line “a buffalo floats over to the rooftop”.
3. With the minimum use of words, Daruwalla has the capacity to create vivid, visual,
realistic and powerful images before the eyes of the readers.
 4. The beauty of Daruwalla’s poetry lies in his sensitive eye for detail. In this poem, he
evokes scenes from village life. “buffalo mounted on a rooftop” is one of the most
remarkable images.
Stanza V
Talking about children, the poet says that they are innocent who try to find joy when
the ride on rescue boats, but men are standing in an oozing wet look, still life-subjects. The
victims are not ready to curse or talk incoherently about the river, for they know the river’s
nature. Nobody is praying to God; they believe the prayers are parabolic and come down with
a flop. It shows the stoic character of the villagers. Stoic means a person who can endure pain
without showing their feelings or complaining. There is a sudden snowfall out there of
villager's booth. Instead of praying, the villagers are scattering more and more salt on
the partially melted snow out of their small temporary tent (booth), which was coming
uncontrollably. They do so because salt can melt the snow faster.
Comments
1. Daruwalla interprets the river’s destructive mood in human terms; he speaks of the
river’s sound as “slang” and “argot”. These words are primarily associated with the
underworld, secret words which criminals use for planning conspiracies. The
otherwise stately and dignified river becomes, when in spate, like a group of criminals
who use secret codes to carry out their plans for creating havoc in the society.
2. ‘Oozing wet look’ means water is slowly flowing on their body as they are wet. 
3. Parabolic means an arch-shaped path. For example, if we throw a stone into the sky, it
goes up to the sky and comes down in an arch shaped path. 
4. “Salt and grain” is an idiom meaning the scene was very sceptic as it cannot explain
in words.
Stanza VI
In this stanza, the poet turns his attention towards some other people in a happy mood.
They are ten miles away from the river’s flank. It is the time for celebration for those people.
They never care about what tragedy happens to their fellow human beings! This baffles the
poet. These lines give us the picture of people in a merry mood. Peasants go to paddy
fields for catching fishes which have come to the fields due to the flood. And some women
are coming in chauffeur-driven cars, who are collecting driftwood came by river, to decorate
their house and rooms. The incidents like women coming in Chauffeur-driven cars, collecting
driftwood and the merry of peasants as they catch the fishes from fields intensify man’s
indifference on our fellow beings even when they are in trouble.
Comments
1. Chauffeur-driven car means the car which has a personal driver.
2. “Her Flank’ means the riverside
3. Urban diction
4. Free verse
5. In this stanza, there are only four lines which make it differ from the rest of the poem
in structure.
Stanza VII
What kind of destruction is this which spread everywhere. When the river recedes, the
river turns bitchy and ready to destroy everything. These lines show the power of bitchy
river again, cross-eddies formed in the river bank sawing away (cutting) the part of land
borders the river (waterfront). Circular Eddies (movement of water causing a small
whirlpool) dives deep, exploring the river’s underneath like frogmen. Frogmen
means persons who is trained to swim underwater, especially for rescue.
The river flees from the scene of destruction created by herself. Behind the thrash, the
land sinks and houses lowered (sag) to the ground to show farewell obeisance (respect) by
kneeling on their leg. It seems that they all have succumbed to the river’s power and strength.
When the water recedes, the fishes left by the flooded water in the rice field died. It seems as
if the mud and the sun have entered into a conspiracy and killed the fishes in the rice-field
(the sun absorbs the water and only mud left behind).
Comments
1. Simile: The poet has compared the thrash of land with diving of the frogman.
2. Personification: a) The river has been personified as a woman. When it recedes, the
poet gives the personality of a cruel, ill-tempered, destructive, mad
and bitchy woman fleeing with widespread arms, taking with her
whatever comes in her way.
b) “Houses sag on to their knees”.
The poet has used vivid, visual, realistic and powerful images. The image of the fish trapped
in mud is a very frightening and remarkable one. In this stanza, there is horrifying visual
imagery.