“The crickets under the trees were stitching a narrow border of sound along the robe of silence that had slipped down from the sky.”
From In the Middle of the Night. This is another example of Tagore’s beautiful use of language. Here the poet uses a visual image to describe the night silence, and the crickets efforts to break this silence. His use of the words ‘stitching a narrow border’ tells about the deepness of the silence, and that these creatures are only able to make jabs of sound which break it.
This is in sharp contrast to how I have experienced present day India – where the idea of silence being broken by crickets is unimaginable. It is such noisy place and very difficult to find any silence at all.
The second metaphor of this passage is an unusual one – the use of the robe to create an image of the night descending and enveloping the character’s world. Floating fabrics – such as silks and saris are very much part of the Indian character, however, the robe describes heaviness – and suggests closing in of the day and a sense of foreboding.
From In the Middle of the Night. This is another example of Tagore’s beautiful use of language. Here the poet uses a visual image to describe the night silence, and the crickets efforts to break this silence. His use of the words ‘stitching a narrow border’ tells about the deepness of the silence, and that these creatures are only able to make jabs of sound which break it.
This is in sharp contrast to how I have experienced present day India – where the idea of silence being broken by crickets is unimaginable. It is such noisy place and very difficult to find any silence at all.
The second metaphor of this passage is an unusual one – the use of the robe to create an image of the night descending and enveloping the character’s world. Floating fabrics – such as silks and saris are very much part of the Indian character, however, the robe describes heaviness – and suggests closing in of the day and a sense of foreboding.
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