The realistic representation of the Indian situation in "Night of the Scorpion".

"Night of the Scorpion" by Nissim Ezekiel, published in "The Exact Name"(1965) is "one of the finest poems in recent Indian English literature." The poem has been universally admired for its beautiful depiction of a common Indian situation, Indian culture and for its vivid and forceful imagery. It clearly shows that Ezekiel is a very Indian poet, rooted in Indian soil and acutely aware of the common human situations of day to day Indian life.


              "Night of the Scorpion" is a brilliant narrative poem without any break or division into stanzas, except for the last three lines which stand apart. The speaker or the poet , who might be, as a detached observer looks the situation over and describes the incidents very vividly which show the very Indianness or Indian sensibility. Whatever the incident may be, actual or imaginary, it is a perfectly realistic and convincing incident.


                The theme in the poem is the experience common enough in the Indian rural areas -- one rainy night, speaker's mother was stung by a scorpion that concealed itself behind a sack of rice because of ten hours of ceaseless rain ---
      "I remember the night my mother/ was stung by a scorpion. Ten hours/ of steady rain had driven him/ to crawl beneath a sack of rice."


                 Like the description of the very realistic Indian situation during rainy season, the unity of Indian civilization or the Indian community is also expressed in the poem. When the poet's mother was suffering from the pain, the neighbours were anxious about her, as the mother of the poet, in Indian home, is the "GHAR LAXMI", the beloved of all. However, they all rushed in the speaker's house as "swarms of flies". They chaunted and "buzzed The name of God a hundred times/ to paralyse the Evil one." The rural Indian people believed in the "efficacy and the potency of the prayer to paralyse the bite of the scorpion the evil incarnate." They searched for the scorpions "with candles and with lanterns" in their hands. But when they failed, "they clicked their tongues" in disappointment.


            A very prominent feature of the rural people of India is their belief in superstition. The neighbours of the village of Mumbai, where the poet was born, we're not exceptional. They too were full of superstitious beliefs. Some of them believed that with the movement of the scorpion, the movement of the poison should be there in the blood ---
      "With every movement that the scorpion made/ his poison moved in mother's blood."


               The neighbours also believed in previous birth. They said, "May the sins" of the poet's mother's "previous birth be burned away" that night. They also said that the misfortunes and sufferings of the mother's next birth were decreased by the pang, the mother was suffering then --- "May your suffering decrease/ the misfortunes of your next birth." The ignorant rustic people also believed that the pang of the mother helped to balance the  "sum of evil" and the "sum of good" committed by the poet's mother. They were also asserting that this pain helped her to diminish the high ambition she had in her mind --
        "May the poison purify your flesh/ Of desire, and your spirit of ambition..."


             The poet's father shows the different picture. He did not completely believe in superstition. He was quite realist, rationalist, and sceptic. He made the herbal medicine and poured "a little paraffin/ upon the bitten tor and put a match to it...." to relieve her pain.


             The rustic neighbours did not completely believe in the father. So that they called a priest to "perform his rites/ to tame the poison with an incantation." This particular incident shows an other side of Indian culture i. e. the belief on religion.


              Moreover, the Indian realistic situation is clearly and passionately expressed in the poem through the high didacticism and devotional mentality of the mother ---
     "Thank God the scorpion picked on me/ and spared my children."
The typical mentality of the Indian motherhood and the devotional mentality of the Indian mother are clearly represented here through the poet's mother. Though the poem is typically Indian in tone,  the last words of the mother raises it to the level of universality as the concern of every mother for children  in every corner of the universe is similar.