Poetry and Original Similes

Above poem is an extract of works of N. Daruwalla who was among Indian poets writing in English.

In one of the pieces in “Ruminations”, the poet can smell violence in the air “like the lash of coming rain; and this feeling seems to the poet to be “poised like a cobra”. These are original similes; and these are followed by a series of metaphors based on serpent-behaviour. These are only a few of the examples. Actually Daruwalla’s poetry contains an abundance of similes and metaphors.

Daruwalla finds that there is violence in the very air, and that this violence is an indication of the mass hatreds drifting across the moon and hovering, poised like a cobra. He looks for a fang that darts, a hood that sways, and eyes that throw out a reptile hate. Here we have horrifying serpent-imagery to indicate the kind of hatred which burns in human breasts and drives them to fight one another. So many people die in the violence that mortuaries are filled with corpses which begin to decompose and emit a foul smell which cannot be drowned by any amount of rose-water, incense-sticks, and flowers.
In one of the pieces in “Ruminations”, the poet can smell violence in the air “like the lash of coming rain; and this feeling seems to the poet to be “poised like a cobra”. These are original similes; and these are followed by a series of metaphors based on serpent-behaviour. These are only a few of the examples. Actually Daruwalla’s poetry contains an abundance of similes and