Small Towns and the River: by Mamang Dai
Short Answer Questions
Question 1 : How does the poet pictures her hometown in the poem ?
Answer: The poet pictures her home town as a constant and unchanging place, its permanence reminds her of death. The town lies peacefully among the trees and seems to remain the same regardless of the season, weather its dusty in summer or windy in winter. This unchanging nature gives it a sense of stability and isolation. However, this same lack of change also makes the cycle of life and death and the rituals surrounding them, a very prominent and defining feature of the town’s existence. The speaker’s description suggests that her hometown is a quiet, steady place where life and death are continuous and cyclic.
Question 2 : What according to the poet, is transient and what is permanent ?
Answer: According to the poet, human life is transient. On the other hand, nature and rituals observed by generations, are permanent. The poet uses the river as symbol of nature. Water in it continues to flow. The river is thus an evidence of immortality of nature.
Question 3 : How does the poet show nature to be immortal ?
Answer: The poet shows nature to be immortal through the river, which is personified as ever flowing and enduring unaffected by the transience of human life. The river personified with soul emerges as a central motif in the poem, symbolising the continence of nature and the eternal cycle of water. From rain to mist on mountain tops, it exists in stark contrast to the static nature of the town suggesting a parallel between the eternal flow of the river and the immortality of the soul.
Question 4: Contrast the period of childhood with that of adulthood in the context of the poem.
Answer: In this poem, childhood is expressed as – “a shrine of happy pictures” which is a collection of captured memories from the childhood days. Thus childhood is said to be a time of innocence and free from worries, about future or death, there is a purity of the soul. Children are not yet exposed to the harsh realities of life, nor do they fear unknown with their child-like innocence. They are more curious and excited.
In this poem as childhood represents the joy of life, the adulthood represents the anxiousness and restlessness. The poet says –
” Small towns grow with anxiety for the future”
The carefree childish souls of the town grow into ones which understand the ways of the world. And when they do, the town together becomes more worried for the future. Nobody knows what comes after death, and this fear seems to cause a high tension. Hence the adulthood is expressed by anxiety for the future, worries about death, loss of peace etc.
Question 5 : Comment on the use of imagery in the poem.
Answer: The poet has used beautiful and distinct imagery to depict nature especially to draw contrast between life and death and the eternal flow of the river.
There are visual images of her hometown lying “calmly and amidst the trees” with “dust flying” and “wind howling”.
The river is depicted with elaborated imagery as a living entity, cutting through the land “like a torrent of grief”. Other natural images include the “mist on the mountain tops”, the ” cool bamboo” being “restored in sunlight” and the rivers longing for a “land of fish and stars”. The cool bamboo is a symbol of human body whereas the sunlight is a symbol of human soul. Just as the human soul puts life into a human body. So does the sunlight into a plant (bamboo) . These images are quite original and appealing.