Nanabhai Bhatt in Prison
Sujata Bhatt
At the foot of Takhteshwar hill
there was an L-shaped house
hidden from the road
by five mango trees
Planted by Nanabhai Bhatt.
Huge crows swoop over
the L-shaped terrace,
red-beaked green parrots fight over
the mango trees. Some years the monsoons
sweep away too much.
It is 1930, 1936…
It is 1942:
Nanabhai sits writing for a moment
while my grandmother
gives orders to everyone.
The next day, he lands in prison again:
thrown in without a trial
for helping Gandhiji
for Civil Disobedience.
(Full poem unable to be reproduced due to the copyright)
VOCABULARY
Swoop - the soaring and dipping movement that birds make
Ghandiji - a familiar term for Mahatma Gandhi (see the context for more info)
Civil Disobedience - refusing to comply with governmental policies and regulations
, STORY/SUMMARY
Stanza 1: At the bottom of Takhteshwar hill there was a house in the shape of an L,
hidden from the road by five mango trees that had been planted by Nanabhai Bhatt.
Stanza 2: Huge crows fly over the L shaped terrace, red-beaked green parrots fight
over the mango trees. Sometimes the heavy rain season of monsoons sweeps away
too much and leaves the area feeling bare. It is 1930, 1936…1942. Nanabhai sits
writing for a moment while my grandmother gives orders to everyone.
Stanza 3: The next day, he is put into prison again: thrown in without a trial for helping
Gandhi, for ‘Civil Disobedience’.
Stanza 4: One term in college I spent hours trying to imagine him in my mind: a thin
man with large hands, I imagined how my grandfather looked in the middle of the
night, in the middle of writing, between his own ideas he pauses to read from
Tennyson, his favourite poet -
Stanza 5: (Lines from Tennyson) A hand that can’t be touched any more - Look at me, I
cannot sleep, and I creep to the door like a guilty thing at the earliest hours of the
morning.
Stanza 6: What did he think about the Northern trees? The old yew tree, the chestnut
tree, and the strange season of falling leaves that happens every year - did he spend
hours trying to imagine it all?
Stanza 7: I know that when he was a student in Bombay he saved and saved money,
living on one meal a day for six months, just so that he could pay to watch the visiting
English Company perform a Shakespeare play…
Stanza 8: And I spent hours thinking about his years in prison: Winter 1943; it is dark
in his prison cell. He is sixty years old. I see him sitting cross-legged on the floor and I
wonder what literature he had memorised by heart, I wonder which lines gave him the
most comfort.
Sujata Bhatt
At the foot of Takhteshwar hill
there was an L-shaped house
hidden from the road
by five mango trees
Planted by Nanabhai Bhatt.
Huge crows swoop over
the L-shaped terrace,
red-beaked green parrots fight over
the mango trees. Some years the monsoons
sweep away too much.
It is 1930, 1936…
It is 1942:
Nanabhai sits writing for a moment
while my grandmother
gives orders to everyone.
The next day, he lands in prison again:
thrown in without a trial
for helping Gandhiji
for Civil Disobedience.
(Full poem unable to be reproduced due to the copyright)
VOCABULARY
Swoop - the soaring and dipping movement that birds make
Ghandiji - a familiar term for Mahatma Gandhi (see the context for more info)
Civil Disobedience - refusing to comply with governmental policies and regulations
, STORY/SUMMARY
Stanza 1: At the bottom of Takhteshwar hill there was a house in the shape of an L,
hidden from the road by five mango trees that had been planted by Nanabhai Bhatt.
Stanza 2: Huge crows fly over the L shaped terrace, red-beaked green parrots fight
over the mango trees. Sometimes the heavy rain season of monsoons sweeps away
too much and leaves the area feeling bare. It is 1930, 1936…1942. Nanabhai sits
writing for a moment while my grandmother gives orders to everyone.
Stanza 3: The next day, he is put into prison again: thrown in without a trial for helping
Gandhi, for ‘Civil Disobedience’.
Stanza 4: One term in college I spent hours trying to imagine him in my mind: a thin
man with large hands, I imagined how my grandfather looked in the middle of the
night, in the middle of writing, between his own ideas he pauses to read from
Tennyson, his favourite poet -
Stanza 5: (Lines from Tennyson) A hand that can’t be touched any more - Look at me, I
cannot sleep, and I creep to the door like a guilty thing at the earliest hours of the
morning.
Stanza 6: What did he think about the Northern trees? The old yew tree, the chestnut
tree, and the strange season of falling leaves that happens every year - did he spend
hours trying to imagine it all?
Stanza 7: I know that when he was a student in Bombay he saved and saved money,
living on one meal a day for six months, just so that he could pay to watch the visiting
English Company perform a Shakespeare play…
Stanza 8: And I spent hours thinking about his years in prison: Winter 1943; it is dark
in his prison cell. He is sixty years old. I see him sitting cross-legged on the floor and I
wonder what literature he had memorised by heart, I wonder which lines gave him the
most comfort.
