Introduction of the Poem:
Anthologised in Hymns in Darkness (1976), Poem of the Separation is a love - poem. It is predominantly touching and poignant, with a touch of humour and irony in the last few lines.
Critical Summary:
The poet addresses a woman he used to love but who has now deserted him, though she is not present. As far as he can remember, they had fallen in love with each other when the war over Kashmir broke out between India and Pakistan. Their love was as explosive as the bombs bursting in India. Theirs was such a stormy love affair that the poet felt that his being had merged with hers. The war between the two countries did not matter at all though they tried to think of it. They were so lost in each other that the season, the time or the place was of no consequence to them. Then suddenly she told him that she had started feeling like a grown - up person; this maturity, the poet feels, was achieved through a thousand kisses the two had exchanged.
They would caress and kiss each other whenever and wherever they met. They reached their rendezvous by bus or train for making passionate love — whether in a restaurant, or by the seashore or on a bench in a park. They were so absorbed in each other that they only thought of their love all the time and each other's voice was music in their ears.
Then she started getting with the lover and, in spite of his best efforts to retain her affection, she started listening to the music in someone else's voice. The lover now realised that she had stopped loving him. She then left the poet.
She is now at a distance of a thousand miles away from him. She now writes to him. Once she sent him her photograph and a newspaper cutting with certain words underlined by her to draw his attention to something particular with her comments with a pencil. When he is alone at night, the lover often thinks of her; he tries to recollect her smell by the perfume she used. He also recollects the dirty and offensive city in which he was born, and the uncivilised people there. That woman was a source of great comfort to him as she would make him laugh and view his surroundings in a new perspective. He wants her back with her light - hearted manner and her face which stood over his shoulders and above her breasts and thighs.
But the woman doesn't wish to continue her relationship with him. In her last letter she enclosed Ramanujan’s English translation of a Kannada poem, in which two lines say that the Lord is playing with flames of fire. She would herself like to play with fire even if she is burnt. She wants to take risks and plunge into a life of adventure even if she comes to grief.
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