Hello Friends,
This blog is my response to the task assigned to us by Prof.Dr.Dilip Baradsir on Sitanshu Yashaschandra's poem and Ecocriticism by Devang Nanavati.
Ecocriticism is the study of literature and the environment from an interdisciplinary point of view, where literature scholars analyze texts that illustrate environmental concerns and examine the various ways literature treats the subject of nature.
Ecocriticism is an intentionally broad approach that is known by a number of other designations, including "Green studies", "ecopoetics", and "environmental literary criticism", and is often informed by other fields such as ecology, sustainable design, biopolitcs, environmental history, environmentalism, and social ecology, among others.
Cheryll Glotfelty's working definition in 'The Ecocriticism Reader' is that "Ecocriticism is the study of the relationship between literature and the physical environment."
Sitanshu Yashaschandra Mehta (born 1941) is a Gujarati language poet, playwright, translator and academic from India. He is the President of Gujarati Sahitya Parishad. He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award for Gujarati given by Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters, writer in 1987 for his poetry collection 'Jatayu'. Subsequently, he was awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award by Government of India, in 2006. Sitanshu served as Vice Chancellor of Saurashtra University, Rajkot for three years.
Let's have a look at the poem "Tree Once Again" by Sitanshu Yashaschandra and translated by Devang Nanavati in English from Gujarati.
That olden ochre brown tree trunk
Already sawed, rasped and tip-tapped for so many years from now
Was used to make the furniture for home.
The dinning table for hasty meals and the chairs,
And the table to write letters to the new acquaintances and to the seniors
A radio stand from which absolutely fresh news keep flowing daily-
So many things of such great importance
Were made out of
That olden ochre brown tree trunk.
Nowhere a storm struck. Nor did any thunder bolts.
Even not a tint of memory could trace how that tree looked like.Tree?!
Funny it sounds and I cannot even believe it today
That this table, chairs, writing table, stand, book shelf
All those things
Were indeed an olden tree once upon a time!
Today, it's incredible
And, perhaps I would laugh.
In fact, sometimes, after returning home exhausted, having had a full meal, while reading the latest issue of Jan Kalyan- a gift that comes from a well wisher....
In fact sometimes, as if one fantasises
That
From the arm of the chair lying near this door-blossoms a violet coloured flower,
That
There nods a sour-tasting sweet fruit from the drawer of the table-covered with the papers full of oration notes,
That
A red bird suddenly takes a flight from the shelf where the files of Jan Kalyan and Akhand anand are stacked,
That
The intoxicating fragrance of a spring arriving unannounced oozes into the drawer where
That
A red bird suddenly takes a flight from the shelf where the files of Jan Kalyan and Akhand anand are stacked,
That
The intoxicating fragrance of a spring arriving unannounced oozes into the drawer where
the daily wares are kept folded.
And, then, again one laughs a little, and feels amused, and remembers
That
The olden ochre brown tree trunk
Already sawed, rasped and tip-tapped
So many years from now
Has been used to make the furniture for home.
In the poem "Tree Once Again", Tree is the hero, the protagonist of the poem, once a tree is cut, every cycle in nature gets disturbed, birds lose their homes, we lose one big oxygen plant, we are part of nature.
The old tree trunk was sawed, means it was cut into parts, peeled and shaped and furniture was made for home from it.
Many things were made from that precious tree trunk like dining table where people take their food hastily because they have to reach office on time and so are not able to enjoy their meals. A table was made on which to write letters to colleagues and seniors, a radio stand for latest news and many such things were made from that old ochre brown tree trunk. Here people are interested in latest news but what kind of news should we watch and what could be more important than tree? A news related to environment is the most important. Trees are living things and a person who loves trees, for them when a tree is cut, it's a murder of a tree. Tree itself is an epic because it takes long time to mature.
There were no storms or lightening, the poet says he doesn't even remember the trace, a single sign that how the tree look and wonders and asks that was it a tree? One would not even believe that this table, chairs, writing table, stand and bookshelf are all made from a tree. It's unbelievable. And one would laugh at such thinking. So we see how things change completely from its initial form. For instance, we see the face of a child when of 2 years and of same person when of 20 years and the same person when of 50 years, there is a major difference, the face is totally different in all three stages and we won't believe that this all faces are of one same person in different stages of life.
When the poet comes home after a long, exhausting, tiring day and then after having his full meal, relaxes and while he is reading the issue of 'Jan Kalyan' which is a gift from a well wisher, and he is lost in an ocean of thoughts, he imagines a violet coloured flower bloomed from the arm of chair, then a sour tasting sweet fruit like orange has appeared from the table where speech papers are kept. Here we see a contrast between softness of flower and hardness of wood. Just like the softness of feather and the hardness of wings of bird. It seems as if a red bird has flown from shelf where files of Jan Kalyan and Akhand anand are kept and new leaves have sprout. These new leaves indicate hope, progress and beginning of new things. Then the poet feels as if some unexpected, inspiring, stimulating fragrance has come up from the drawer where clothes are kept folded. Sometimes some perfume smell reminds us of somebody or of some incidence in life. In the city life, in buildings where there are no plants, spring is only marked in calendars and the real essence of the beauty of flowers that spring season brings, cheerful moods and colourful flowers which are interlinked are not felt in the city life of skyscrapers. So spring will be silent if we don't care of nature around us. We need to plant more and more trees around us.
And again the poet laughs a little, feels humorous and again remembers that, the old ochre brown tree trunk, that is cut, shaped, polished long years back had been used to make the furniture for home.
So whichever wooden furniture, articles should be used to maximum, we should understand that they are made from precious trees and it takes around 20 years and even more for a tree to grow to its size to make things from it. Better to use metallic things, so we can save trees. Somethings should be Reused, Recycled and Reduced to conserve our environment.
National Green Tribunal
The National Green Tribunal, established in 2010, as per the National Green Tribunal Act is a specialised judicial body equipped with expertise solely for the purpose of adjudicating environmental cases in the country.
The tribunal is tasked with providing effective and expeditious remedy in cases relating to environmental protection, conservation of forests and other natural resources and enforcement of any legal right relating to environment. The tribunal's orders are binding and it has powers to grant relief in the form of compensation and damages to affected persons.
The Tribunal has presence in five zones- North, Central, East, South and West. The Principal Bench is situated in the North zone, headquartered in Delhi. The Central zone bench is situated in Bhopal, East zone in Kolkata, South zone in Chennai and West zone in Pune.
"He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all."
From The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Coleridge.
Greta Thunberg (born 3 January 2003) is a Swedish environmental activist who is internationally known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action against climate change. She has received two consecutive nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize (2019 & 2020) and many other awards.
Then we have a great invention of moving a tree from one place to another place so we don't need to cut the trees which are coming in our way but to shift them to another place. Let's watch the video to know more about it.
Life of humans, animals and birds is with this environment. We are carelessly replacing natural environment into artificial one. Our life is interconnected with every component present in our surroundings. The air that we continuously breathe, the water we drink, are parts of our environment. The manmade technological activities are the major cause of destruction of our environment. Environmental degradation is a global issue. It is adversely affecting physical and mental health of humans. We are suffering socially, economically, emotionally and intellectually.
The environment consists of living and non living components. Both are interdependent. Though air, water and soil are the non-living parts but all living forms depend on these things. All natural components are the real beauty of environment. Trees are known as green cover of the earth. Let's plant trees to make environment healthier and follow the 3R principle: Reduce the consumption of natural resources, recycle the products and reuse the used material to save natural assets. It is environment which regulate and maintain all natural cycles and promotes life cycle on earth. We humans in the search of progress have forgotten its value and importance. The depletion of ozone layer, greenhouse effect, climate change and global warming are the very issues with which environment is suffering from. The most effective way to save environment is to spread awareness.
To conclude, we can say that trees are very important and beneficial for every life form on earth. Without them, the survival of life on earth will become difficult and after some time every species will start to die because of lack of oxygen on the planet. So, to save our lives and to survive we have to learn the importance of trees and we should protect and take care of our trees.
1806 words.
"Greta Thunberg." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, Wikimedia Foundation, Inc, 1 Dec. 2018, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greta_Thunberg. Accessed 20 Nov. 2020.
National Green Tribunal, greentribunal.gov.in.