Poet: Vikram Seth was born in Calcutta in 1952. He left India to study at Oxford where he earned degrees in philosophy, economics, and politics, and went on to study creative writing at Stanford and classical Chinese poetry in China at Nanjing University. His first novel, The Golden Gate, is written entirely in tetrameter sonnets, something that had never been done in the English language before. The Suitable Boy, his prose fiction debut, examined multigenerational Hindu or Muslim conflict in 1950s India and holds the distinction of being the longest single volume ever published in English. But Seth is much more than a literary statistic in the Guinness Book of World Records.
Introduction
Our self-image is often based on what others make us believe we are. A poor self-image can do irreparable damage to us.You are what you think you are. Our self-image is often based on what others make us believe we are. A poor self-image can do irreparable damage to us.
Think of a frog, and immediately, you are reminded of its croaking. Think of a nightingale and its melodious voice comes to your mind. Yet, a frog is cunning enough to make a nightingale feel small and diffident about her singing.
Summary
The poet, Vikram Seth, very cleverly gives us a message of the importance of self-confidence and moral courage in his poem - The 'Frog and the Nightingale'. Once in a bog, a frog sat under a Sumac tree and croaked all night in a loud and unpleasant voice. The other creatures loathed his voice but their complaints, insults and brickbats couldn't stop him from croaking stubbornly and pompously, insensitive to the disturbance he was causing.
Then, one night a nightingale appears at the bog. Her melodious voice captures the admiring attention of the creatures of the Bingle Bog. Ducks and herons swim towards the Sumac tree to hear the nightingale serenade. Some lonely creature even weeps hearing her song. When she stops, there is