English Literature - Poems - Partition - Quotes

• "in her garden" - Due to the common semantic field associated with a garden (fresh, floral smell and a flourish of life), this setting contrasts with the "cries" eminating from the train station and intensify the suffering because of the severe juxtaposition.

• "She could hear the cries of the people" - The "cries" show their suffering. - Collective noun diminishes them, suggesting they had been looked over. - Collective pronoun is also indicative of a large number of them, showing the magnitude of the numbers of people affected.

• "stranded" - Lost, abandonned, displaced.

Note!: Everything is quite vague in the onset of the poem ("she", "garden", "the city") with the exception of "Ahmedabad railway station" highlighting the importance of the events that happened there and the people exposed to them to her mother ("she").

• "their noise" - Collective pronoun diminishes them. Shift from "cries" to "noise" suggests that she is irritated by them.

• "-" - Repetition of dashes show hesitation, connoting how difficult it is for the mother to relive the events.

• "She felt afraid" - Portrays Partition as a terrible, fearful occurance.

• "felt she could not go with her aunt" - Use of the modal verb "could" suggests that she wanted to go yet didn't have the capability as she was inhibited by the fear mentioned prior.

• "Even the birds sounded different" - The use of the adverb "even" adds gravity to the fact and shows how severely people have been affected by Partition.

• "the shadows cast by the neem trees brought no consolation" - Not even the trees which protected her from the harsh sun could console her, perhaps because she knows the people at the train station were suffering and thus felt guilty for having any contentment. - Shadows could represent how she was in the dark about the whole situation yet, even despite that, she still experienced fear because of it.

• "But how I wish I had gone with my aunt" - Further shows her inner conflict. - This phrase is inverted, drawing attention to it and emphasising the significance of it in her mind.

• "I still feel guilty about that." - The phrase "guilty about that" is also inverted showing how deep her regret is.