Gaia Summary
- Shreedhar Prasad Lohani
About the Writer
Shreedhar Prasad Lohani is one of the most famous, loved and respected names in English Department. He is a Nepali writer, critic, poet in English literature. Prof. Lohani has achieved his degrees from Tribhuvan University and the University of England and the U.S.A. He has taught English literature in English Department for several years.
Literal Comprehension
Generally, poet Lohani's poems are influenced by romantic writers. The title of the present comes from Greek myth. In Greek myth, Gaia (also called Gaea) is considered to be the Goddess for the earth. Hence, Gaia is the symbol or personification of mother earth or nature. Hence, this entire poem is on nature which is the main subject matter of romantic writers. Nature is a mother, a feeder, caretaker and the one who nourishes.
Indeed, it is nature that sacrifices endure all the difficulties and gives life to her generations. As a mother, nature or the earth is gentle. As a female, she is not only and delicate but also ruthlessly cruel who can even kill others if she got angry. Such anger of the earth, human beings can see in the form of storm, landslide, flood, tsunami, wind, and volcanic eruption. So, nature is paradoxical because she is the source of creation and destruction. She creates life on the earth and destroys life when she desires. In this sense, Lohani has presented earth not as dead space but as a human being who contains both good and bad qualities.
Though nature is a goddess she is surrounded by threats and challenges. To show how death lives in all the parts of the earth, poet Lohani has used many death images. Death images are those mental pictures that give us the idea of death. Lohani begins with the image of wind which is a surging (very hot) wind that has made the entire palm tree wither away. He writes that the rain which is generally supposed to be the source of life in fact devours the life itself.
Most probably, the poet is referring to the floods which occur time and again and sweep away human settlements by the image of devouring rain. We must not forget the point that the poet has personified all the images which he has used in this poem. There is a sea on the earth but the sea is opening its mouth like a cave to eat whatever comes it is beforehand. Similarly, the mountain which is supposed to be a source of entertainment, a source of relaxation and pleasure is compared with the beak of a bird that tortures and wounds its prey.
If we think about time, we come to know that it is the source of everything. It was the time that had produced the best civilizations and given birth to the greatest scientific inventions but the poet here uses time merely as an agent which plucks ( destroys ) everything. Poet Lohani writes that the entire world is shrouded (covered) with mildew (bad smell).
The world is described as a house that has been covered by hunger from all sides. Then, the second last line of the poem contradicts all destructive qualities of the earth with her another quality because the earth tolerates all these obstacles (challenges, threats and difficulties) because she knows that there is no creation without destruction. Hence, earth alone can show the best way to live life. That is, we should not be afraid of the difficulties of our life because they might have occurred to sharpen us so that we can do the best in our life.
Short Summary of The Poem
"Gaia" is a short poem written by Shreedhar Lohani. The poem uses Gaia, the Greek Goddess for the earth as a personification or a symbol of earth and discusses what the human beings are doing over the nature and how nature is enduring us no matter how bad she is exploited. In the poem, the different physical things turn into devastating demons.
The rain is devouring one, the sea has cavernous froth mouth, mountain peaks are snowless and the whole nature is being more exploited day by day and it's bringing lots of natural disasters. But whatever happens, mother earth is enduring us. The author is optimistic about the life of human beings as he thinks that mother earth will never stop feeding and providing life to us.