About the Author: The poet was born and brought up in a Hindu family and later he went abroad. So his self was formed with the host of incidents from the past or the memories of a life to which he belonged at his past. In fact while the Indian or Hindu milieu constitutes the `inner’ substance of Ramanujan’s poetry, the western milieu shapes the `outer’ substance and these two coexist in his poems. All European artists used to draw their self portraits. Once the poet’s portrait was drawn by his father. The poet on his way watches his self-portrait through a shop-window. But his portrait seems stranger to himself. He cannot recognize his own portrait. Here the poet is suffering from identity crisis of his own-self. In fact it `illustrates modern man’s concern with the self and provides the matrix within which self becomes relevant’ In the modern world it is easy to resemble everyone but oneself. The portrait reminds him the memory of his past, his family genealogy which he gave away when came to abroad. This is the other part of his existence; the past or his root. The poet here reminds that the stranger over there is essentially someone who belongs to a particular family. Here his self is somewhere fragmented. A sense of exile comes to his mind. He becomes alienated from his own self. This is a kind of modern alienation where a man is constantly falling into oblivion; he cannot resemble his own self from where he came. Surprisingly the portrait is though still signed but not dated. Here the time is diluted; there is no boundary of time in his own self. The present and the past coming together in his mind and try to make sense of it. Two points of view are offered in this poem about the identity crisis depicted in the poem about the identity crisis depicted in the poem. Bruce King states that in a series of paradoxes, resemblance is found to be influenced by situation and the kind of mirror or perspective in which a person is seen. Here the modern alienation effect is reflected vividly when the identity he sees mirrored is that of stranger . But if we look at another point, he is determined by his father or his sub-conscious mind is somewhere rooted in his own genealogy. His identity is reflected through his portrait by the rules of optics, suggesting his muddled identity, although `often signed in a corner’ by his father. `Instead of the traditional artist painting his own portrait in a mirror, we have a cubist view of the self as fractured and belonging to different eras’(Bruce King). Ramanujan’s self seems temporary to himself as temporary is his portrait as he `sometimes see’ himself in the shop windows. The whole poem is about the existential crisis which is a kind of predicament. Gajendra Kumar feels that the core of the essential self of the poet persona in the poetry of Ramanujan ``remains as an intuitive world, but this is amended by changed circumstances and decisions. The essential self develops, changes, it grows from the seeds in the past towards a future which while unknowable is already being formed’’. So the poet in the poem is neither a nostalgic traditionalist nor an advocate of modernization and westernization. He is a product of both and his poem reflect the personality conscious of change, enjoying its vitality, contradictions but also aware of the past, the memories which formed his inner self, memories of an unconscious namelessness which are still alive. In this poem past and present are mingled together through the poet’s journey of life not surpassing each other which is a cultural adjustment between `West’ and `East’ which is a major kind of adjustment. He was a unique writer who wrote poetry in three languages: English, Tamil and Kannada. Translation was his forte. He was attention to Indian literature through his numerous translations and creative writing in English all over the world. The double impulse of being an expatriate writer, who had

to satisfy the natives of both the countries of birth and domicile, seemed to have worked upon him. He states: “English and my disciplines (linguistics and anthropology) give me my ‘Outer forms” linguistic, metrical, logical and other such ways of shaping experience, and my first thirty years in India, my frequent visits and field-trips, my personal and professional pre occupations with Kannada, Tamil, the classics and folklore give me my substance, my “Inner” forms, images and symbols. They are continuous with each other, and I no longer can tell what comes from where”. Ramanujan published four volumes of poetry. The striders (1966), Relations (1971), Selected Poems (1976) and second Sight (1986). In his poetry there is an encounter of past and present, of the East and the West. Poem after poem, he goes back to his childhood memories and experiences of life in India. In his poetry one may discern a Western trained intellectual man who looks at oriental things with a detached interest. Most of the poems of Ramanujan have their origin in recollected personal emotion, and hence, family becomes the main focus of his poetry. They deal with the family life in an ironic tone. His poetry reveals how an Indian poet in English derives his health from going back to his roots-childhood memories. One has to agree with Parthasarathy who rightly observes: “The family for Ramanujan, is in fact, one of the central metaphors with which he thinks.” is fastidiousness as an artist accounts for the thinness of his poetic output. He is also modern in the use of colloquial and conversational style. In most of his poems, he tries to assimilate the native tradition into English language for the benefit of the foreigners. For instance in the poem “A River ” he uses the word ‘diapers’which means napkins in America for the sake of his American readers. He has won the admiration of all his contemporaries and peers like Nissim Ezekiel, Parthasarathy, Keki N. Daruwalla and Jayanta Mahapatra. Hovering between the land of his birth and the country of his work and domicile, Ramanujan accepts both and does not abandon one for the other. His poetry is Indian in sensibility and content but English in language. It is strongly rooted in and stems from the Indian

10 The Striders The Striders And search For certain thin __ Stemmed, bubble- eyed water bugs. See them perch On dry capillary legs Weightless On the ripple skin Of a stream Not only prophets Walk in water. The bug sits On a landslide of lights And drowns eyeDeep Into its tiny strip Of sky. 10.1 Analysis of the poem: “The Striders” is included in the very first collection of poems by A.K. Ramanujan, the poem “The Striders” is one of the finest poems by the poet which opens a scope for a deconstructive analysis in relation to the poets of Indian sensibilities. The striders may be a small insect. But the poet delineates it from different angles. It causes explosion of thoughts for the poet. The thoughts are having no forms. Those do not remain in the framework of binary. In the poem we find, the first stanza is all about its physical description. The poet makes it a source of ideas. It is no doubt a strange insect. But the poet makes it a point of exploration. The poem begins with the line ‘And search’, the conjunction ‘And’ refers to the multiplying ideas, some of which may be known and the rest may be unknown. ‘Search’ itself stands for an exploration, not in any particular direction, nor in any presumable form. The poet describes the water bug as ‘bubble- eyed’, there by he makes it dynamic, not static. Hence, ideas

are also likes the bubbles, very much short – lived. Those come and go. The poet refers to human ideas perching on ‘Capillary legs’. The poet may be referring to the force of globalization, through the ‘ripple skin of a stream’. Again, at first reading the poem seems to be written on the line of Imagist ideals. After the excellent narration of the aterbug in scanty language, the poems seems to gain momentum of meaning.For some critics, "Stream” is the symbol of Universal change and of time, what is a very common idea in Indian philosophy. Waterbug is a symbol of permanence. Both the symbols refer to the myth of Bishnu, what is again an Indian God. The Bishnu is a constant in a world of flux. The second stanza also refers to Indian tradition. The poet links the ancient time to the present time. The depth and the potentiality of the insect is heightened by the poet through the reference to the ancient prophets, who with their energy, accumulated through yoga, used to walk even on water without being sunk. It creates an impression of the fact that the poet might be speaking about power of human being,’ who sits on a landslide of light’, means he is even capable of going deep into the mystery of light or universe. It has a touch of irony at the same time . With the growth and development of science a nd technology , moral strength of human being has not increased . It has rather gone down . Hence ‘the strider’ is not just a strange insect. Through it , the poet refers to the human- being, who is very powerful in every respect. Human-being has not only conquered light, but also the sky. For the poet the high sense of adventure of human being is very significant. The poet never forgets the unbelievable power of the yoga and the yogis, which is part of Indian life and tradition from the Vedic days. But in present context the same yogic power has decline. ‘Strider’ is the New England name for the water insect as mentioned by the poet himself in a foot note of the poem. There is another symbolic implication in it. America which in its early stage of formation as a nation was called New England stands for adventure, exploration, sense of freedom implying much more than England or any other European country. Does the poet refer to the Americas leadership, its imperial ism, its exploration in each and every field of life and its unique assimilation of people from all over world? Now that America is let down by global recession along with other European countries , the poem seems to have an ironic undertone. The poet has a high sense of wonder towards the west and the poem too has an impact on the readers because he approaches the issues as an Indian. The poet underlines the fact that what is past for India is a present for the west. As Indians we usually play our ‘past’ card in global forum with no critique of our present endeavour. We have our past glory, heritage, golden history and cultural achievement which have not been continuing upto contemporary time. We hardly realize our present barrenness.’ Of prophets walking on water’ in ancient past is a yogic or scientific excellence, we have not carried forth the tradition to present time. We bask in our past achievements and do nothing. We have become stagnant. But the west and the United status are not so. Their progress continues and as high as the sky. It is an on going process. It simply can not be measured. Their success goes ‘deep into its tiny strip of sky’. Hence the poem is not just an account of the achievement of the west but also the contemporary feature of India in each and every field against the backdrop of a large and glorious past. It is frustration of contemporary time which lead to ‘anxiety’. ‘Anxiety’ kills human vitality. A.K. Ramanujan has been appeared as a diasporic poet right from the beginning of his poetic career with The Striders in 1966 and

has remained the same until his death in 1993. As the only Indian English poet occupying a place in The Norton Anthology of Poetry Ramanujan’s reputation is well established as a world’s foremost folklorist, linguist, translator and a sagacious intellectual. And as a poet, he is not only a representative figure of the postindependent Indian English poetry, but also a seminal representative spokesman of the third world Diasporas. In his poetry, Ramanujan is always unique in rendering his sensibilities as a diaspora having “a double self” composed with the components of Eastern and Western epistemologies (Singer xiii). With this double self “as actor and as object” (ibid)- one who acts and the other acts upon- the poet always considers him as vulnerable with his ‘elements of composition’ indicating the anti-essentialist view of self-identity capable of constant transformations and negotiations. Though Whitmanian in view, here Ramanujan, behind incorporating various theoretical perspectives like Foucault’s “technologies of the self” (Foucault, “The Technologies of the Self” 18), Bhabha’s notion of the ambivalent “third space” (Rutherford 211) and so on, too manifests him as a fragile and open being having a hybrid identity. With that hybrid identity, the poet, throughout his early poetry indicates how he maintains a floating existence in the diasporic space as a displaced individual. The title of the first volume The Striders itself is the metaphorical expression of that floating existence that the poet has to maintain in that displaced location. Most of the critics of our present time have been considered Ramanujan as one of the most obscure poets among all the post-colonial Indian diasporas dealing with “the nature of the human body and its relation to the natural world” as his main themes of poetry through which the poet asserts his inner turmoil and anxieties as a diaspora and negotiates his problems of identity and belonging. Although in such disguised self-revelations, the personal in Ramanujan’s poetry is often deferred by his ironic posture, which, in turn, forms a stipulated discourse of diasporic existence in the introspective level of his poetry. That discourse comprising the trajectory between subjective to objective is the main idea linking the notion of identity in his poetry. For Bruce King, such “paradoxical concerns” in Ramanujan’s poetry often have incorporated variety of themes and moods ranging from the notion of root to routes, past to present, truth and absurdities of religious faith to views of modern science or from urge for belongingness to the notion of uncertainty of identity (71). However, an experimental move from the reflective level to the introspective level of his poetry reveals that behind those ‘paradoxical concerns’ and varied moods, Ramanujan has always foregrounded his diaspora sensibilities as a catalytic force of his poetry. Starting with the hermeneutics of nostalgia, a split-consciousness, “multiple identities and solidarities or a re-assertion of ‘native’ cultural identity” and so on, his poetic narrative incorporates all the tactics of diaspora narrative (Nayar 197). The title of his first volume itself stands for the ‘water bugs’- “a new England name for the water insect” having the power to move on the surface of rivers symbolizing the floating existence of a diasporic poet in the river like dynamic context of living. The insect, which neither sinks nor stops, floats and roams everywhere to belong somewhere in a continually changing river is a metaphorical assertion of his own liminality as a diaspora who being alienated from the past and the root as well, roams and floats to regain his lost sense of identity and belonging. If the struggle of the striders to “perch...on the ripple skin/of a stream” renders the poet’s struggle to capture a sense of belonging in the diasporic location, the ability of the same to exist both on water and on

land manifest the prophetic dimension of their existence. What is vindicated through such an amphibious existence is not the desire for essential inner identity, but the myriad of potential identities irrespective to any definite belonging and primordial identity. In the domain of diaspora, both the processes of thwarting native identity and of creating new identities operate as two overwhelming forces of motivating identity politics in Ramanujan’s poetry. A diaspora discovers both the arts of negotiation and appropriation out of that reciprocal tension between the two forces and thereby makes the threshold a highly productive and ambivalent space for creation. 10.2 Solved Questions and Answers: What is the basic theme of this poem? The Striders” is one of the finest poems by the poet which opens a scope for a deconstructive analysis in relation to the poets of Indian sensibilities. How is the feeling of diaspora brought about in the poem? The poem itself is written with diasporic feeling in the mind of the writer. the processes of thwarting native identity and of creating new identities operate as two overwhelming forces of motivating identity politics in Ramanujan’s poetry. A diaspora discovers both the arts of negotiation and appropriation out of that reciprocal tension between the two forces and thereby makes the threshold a highly productive and ambivalent space for creation. What is missing in the poem? Ramanujan’s poetry is often deferred by his ironic posture, which, in turn, forms a stipulated discourse of diasporic existence in the introspective level of his poetry. How have the themes incorporated in this poem? Ramanujan’s poetry often have incorporated variety of themes and moods ranging from the notion of root to routes, past to present, truth and absurdities of religious faith to views of modern science or from urge for belongingness to the notion of uncertainty of identity. How does Striders portray Indian tradition? The poem refers to Indian tradition when the poet links the ancient time to the present time. The depth and the potentiality of the insect is heightened by the poet through the reference to the ancient prophets, who with their energy, accumulated through yoga, used to walk even on water without being sunk. It creates an impression of the fact that the poet might be speaking about power of human being,’ who sits on a landslide of light’, means he is even capable of going deep into the mystery of light or universe.