Summary of the Poem:
A portrait of the Shah of Iran hangs upon the wall. This portrait shows the Shah as looking at the scene before him in a “knowing” manner (or with an eye winking to show his understanding of the situation). The object, at which his eyes are fixed, is a cake which, lying in the cracked showcase has become stale and has begun to give out a bad smell. There is a fly perched on the wrist of a customer who looks a loafer; and this fly is planning to fly away from the wrist.
Outside the restaurant, there are large, green trees which obstruct the breeze and prevent it from blowing freely. There is a swan floating on the surface of the pond. The swan looks apologetic as if it had no right to use the surface of this pond. The road, which is a neat one, leads to a lovely cottage, with a garden attached to it. The loafer, who is feeling thirsty, sees the glass of water which a waiter has placed before him and the water in which is shaking somewhat.
Under one of the chairs there is a cat, which has been lying asleep and dreaming, but which has now been disturbed in its sleep and has therefore come to the conclusion that dreaming is an administrative problem. The loafer has lighted a cigarette, and he has done so with the precision with which a schoolmaster imparts knowledge to his students. The loafer puts the burnt matchstick in the circle formed by the tea, and observes the surface of the tea rising slightly. This rising of the surface of the tea is like a dead body rising from a block of ice when some relative of the dead man goes into the morgue to identify the corpse.
The burnt matchstick in the tea - circle resembles the defiant needle of a compass pointing aggressively to a star in the black sky. The tables, chairs, and mirrors in the restaurant may be described as the night which needs to be sewn; and the cashier is where the night comes apart at the seams of the sewn - up garment.
Critical Analysis:
This is a rather difficult poem to understand. It is not the ideas which are difficult but the manner in which the ideas have been expressed. There is no plain - speaking in this poem. The syntax is almost incomprehensible. The main trouble with Arun Kolatkar's poetry is that he does not make much use of punctuation or of capital letters or of any traditional arrangement of words. Some of the lines in this poem are like riddles, though some of the phrases and some of the similes and metaphors are simply wonderful. “A fly on the make”; “a loafer's wrist an operational base”; “dogmatically green”; “the blank testament of the table”; “dreaming as an administrative problem”; “the exactitude of a pedagogue” —these are all examples of original and highly gratifying use of words and of phrase – making.
