Worldly Wisdom 1

Vikram Seth was born in Calcutta. His father was a businessman, who for sometime worked in the Bata Shoe Company of Bata Nagar, West Bengal. His mother was a lawyer, who studied Law in England. She went on to become the first woman chief justice of India of the state High Court of Simla. Seth studied in England the elementary and primary classes or rather spent his first six years after birth there and came back to India to do the higher level of schooling. He went back to London to enrol himself as a student of Economics in Corpus Christy College and found himself attracted to poetry and music instead. Seth is a polyglot who has learnt German, French, Mandarin dialect of Chinese and Urdu. He plays flute and cello and a librettist. The volume of poems ‘The Frog and the Nightingale’ was published in the year 1994. He started his writing career in 1986 with the publication of his musical or verse novel ‘The Golden Gate’ and is currently working on the sequel of ‘A Suitable Boy’ titled ‘A Suitable Girl’.

‘The Frog and the Nightingale’ is a simple poem that speaks out a simple moral. It is a nature poem and built on the style of an allegory or parable. The poem features an ignorant nightingale and a conniving frog that marauds the spirit of the bird. It starts with a customary introduction to any story. There is a swampy land and which is home to several creatures. There lives a frog in that bog that considers itself a crooner and expends the nights in blaring out. Its baritonal tenor pierces the ears of the occupants of the bog and they spend their nights hoping for a remedy. However there is no stopping to this ‘jive’, lest the arrival of a nightingale. The frog lives under a sumac tree and always looks forward to the setting of the sun. One night, there comes a nightingale and perching on the sumac tree it has started singing. The song has soothed the dry ears of all animals that have been battered by the dry ‘croaks’. The song of the bird has attracted ducks, swans and herons. The bird has received much praise from the dwellers of the bog.

The following night when the bird is ready to sing, the frog has made its appearance by offering a critique on her last night’s performance. The frog introduces himself as the baritonal expert of the bog and has long been a successful practitioner of tenor. There the bird is attracted to commit first of its foibles. It enquires to the frog about her last night’s performance. The critic in the frog has come alive with the comments of the song being lengthy and the voice being too feeble to reach the possible listeners of the bog. The nightingale confesses that the song is not lofty but one of her creativity. The frog comes forward to teach the right methods of singing so as to improve the voice of the bird, and not for free of course, for a reasonable fee. As the bird has begun singing, with much energy and spirit to please the frog, a good crowd gathers and the frog fills its purse with a fee of admittance. The frog expresses his dissatisfaction and commences training in the following morning in the drenching rain. The nightingale, not used to swagger in rain, finds itself very uncomfortable. It is advised to put on a scarf and sash and imitate the cacophonic blaring of the frog. The frog is always hard to be pleased and wants the bird to reach a bass voice. The morning’s ordeal has exhausted the bird and the cool moon of the night has revived her spirit and voice. She sings in a high tone to attract and please the frog. However the animals could only listen to a dispirited voice of hers. She has been sold songs by the frog and advice too for emulating the baritone of it. The sorrowful nightingale can never please the frog and ‘raise’ herself to the level of the frog and she breathes herself last with an unfulfilled wish of hers. The angry frog announces to the animals that the wit-less bird is incapable of comprehending his lessons and dies out instead. So the bog has come back to the reign of croaking, screeching melody of the frog.

The poem deals with the concept of knowing oneself and knowing the world. The bird is unaware of its melodious voice and has heeded to the advice of a selfish, arrogant and inconsiderate figure of a frog. The bird is presented as a humble figure. However, humility at the expense of ignorance is dangerous. The poet makes use of ten-lined stanzas and the discipline of it gets violated here and there in the poem. The rhyme scheme is aa, bb, cc, dd, ee. There is an additional line tagging itself to a few stanzas to complement the meaning of them. The poet is selective in his choice of words and diction. ‘The frog and the nightingale’ is a fine poem indeed.