Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House- A K Ramanujan - for APPSC JL DL

Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House’ was first published in 1971 in his second volume of collection of poems titled, ‘Relations (1971).’ It appeared in his Selected Poems (1976) and posthumously in The Collected Pomes of A K Ramanujan (1995)

It is a ninety-one-line poem that is divided into sets of three and four lines, as well as single, solitary lines of verse. The poem is written in free verse. This means that there is no rhyme scheme or metrical pattern to the lines. In fact, if there was, the poem would make a lot less sense. The chaotic nature of the images and their associations are integral to the story. If they were to be structured and rhymed, they would have a lot less of an impact.

Through vivid images, gentle humour, and sharp observations, Ramanujan highlights how the house becomes a living metaphor for Indian family life, with its overwhelming sense of hospitality, emotional bonds, and the cyclical nature of relationships.In the poem, the poet depicts the joint family system which was very popular in ancient days. It represents the feelings of love, brotherhood,neighbourhood and unity. In joint family system, true Indian culture is found.The poet recalls an ancestral house which had been a true embodiment of old culture and tradition. This house was a world where human beings were marginalised and the helpless creatures were accepted, given shelter and provided with identity (name)

Summary

‘Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House’ by A K Ramanujan is a nostalgic poem about a Great House that was the haunt of his childhood, as well as the people, things and events associated with it. It speaks about history through an image-rich narrative about an old, traditional ancestral family home. (a Great House). It acts like as giant trap or a black hole.

The poem begins with the speaker telling the reader that everything that comes into his house never leaves.Or, if it leaves, it eventually comes back again. As soon becomes clear, the speaker does mean everything. Some of the many “small-scale” things on his list are cows, “prostitute songs,” wives and soldiers, books, photographs, and cloth. It absorbs everything. Wandering cows from the street come inside and are simply adopted, given names, and kept. Library books are brought home but never read; instead of being returned, they stay on the shelves, collecting fines and breeding insects like silverfish, becoming a permanent part of the house's clutter.

Even people and small objects fall into this trap. Neighbours who bring food on their own dishes never get their plates back. Servants and family members enter and become stuck in the house's routine. Daughters-in-law and sons-in-law, who may have had their own lives before, eventually forget their pasts and become absorbed into the family's way of life, worrying about money or teaching the children. The house strips away their individuality and makes them just another part of the system.

The poem then explains that if something does manage to leave the house, it eventually comes back, but usually in a changed or "processed" form. The speaker compares this to Indian cotton that was shipped to England (Manchester) only to be sold back to India as expensive cloth. Similarly, letters sent to wrong addresses eventually find their way back with red ink marks. Even ideas that family members hear outside return to the house as if they were new discoveries, showing that the house recycles everything.

Some of the most important things that come into the house, and stay there, are beliefs. In one example the speaker describes how the women are made to follow traditional gender roles and in another how a neighbour brought a dish of sweets for a god’s wedding anniversary.

This cycle applies to the family members themselves. Sons who run away to escape the house eventually return in the form of their own children (the grandchildren). These grandchildren embrace the traditions the fathers rejected, like reciting ancient prayers or bringing holy water for dying ancestors. The house preserves everything-not just physical items, but also family traits, diseases (like epilepsy), and old habits. The past is never truly gone; it keeps repeating itself in the present.

Towards the end of the poem, the examples take a darker turn. The speaker starts to talk about war and the men in the family who have gone off to fight. One man went as far as the Sahara but came back “gnawed by desert foxes”.

This seems like quite a depressing thing to have happened, but the second man the speaker mentions came back in body alone. A nephew who went to fight in a war returns not as a living person, but as a dead body (a "casualty") in a military truck. The tragedy is striking because his body arrives on a normal, "chatty afternoon," while the rest of the family is busy with their daily gossip. The house absorbs this death just as easily as it absorbed the stray cows and old books, continuing its life despite the tragedy.

This is the main theme of the poem. That nothing is meaningless in a family. All its quirks, bits of trivia, and important history belong to the home and can’t be separated from future generations. 

 

Literary Devices and Poetic Techniques

One of the most obvious techniques in ‘Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House’  is alliteration. It occurs when words are used in succession, or at least appear close together, and begin with the same letter. For example, in the second stanza, “lost long”, which appears twice. In line seventeen there is another example with “for fines” and another in line twenty with “long lines”. These are only a few of the many within the poem.

Another technique used very effectively is enjambment. This occurs when a line is cut off before its natural stopping point.  It forces a reader down to the next line, and the next, quickly. One is forced to move forward to comfortably resolve a phrase or sentence. Examples exist throughout the poem, such as at the end of line nine.

 

Summary of the Poem “Small-Scale Reflections on A Great House”:

The Ancestral House as a Symbol of Tradition and Culture:

The poet recalls an ancestral house which had been a true embodiment of old culture and tradition. It preserved its old social and ethical values. The cruel blows of time could not affect its surroundings. It always remained unaffected from the activities of outside. It considerably signified the Great Indian Culture.

The house was said to possess an incorrigible property of letting anything into its confine without allowing it to go back. (The Indian Culture has forever accommodated whatever had arrived at its threshold. It has incorporated all foreign elements into its internal structure to form a homogeneous whole). He remembers the things and creatures that entered the Great House and got lost there and never went out.

Things came in daily, but they lost themselves among other things which had come previously long ago and which had been lost among other things which had come in even before that and had similarly been lost. (In fact, it projects the antiquity, rich heritage and innumerable elements the culture encompasses.) This house was a world where human beings were marginalised and the helpless creatures were accepted, given shelter and provided with identity (name); as with the intruding cow. Sometimes wandering cows came into the house and they became a part of it.

The mute, helpless and suffering cows were given shelter by the elders of this house. The elders and other members of this house showed the sympathetic and generous attitude for the stray cows. The cows were given name. They (cows) were mated with a bull to be made pregnant. The sexual act between the cow and bull was arranged by the elders of the house. The sexual act took place in broad daylight without any secrecy.

The elders did not want that their growing or grown – up daughters should see the bull performing the sexual act with a cow, but the young girls could not suppress their curiosity (which is natural and inevitable). They hid behind the windows which had holes in them, and through the holes they managed to look at what was going on.

 

Books, Sweets, Servants, Gramophones, and Diseases That Never Left the House:

The poet presents an unusual account of books in the library, which were brought in the house and were never read. The library books which were brought into the house , but were left to remain in the house instead of returning them ( thebooks ) to the library after two weeks , the period for which a borrower could keep them . If the library books are not read for more than two weeks , the silver fish would begin to lay a row of eggs in the ledgers for fines just like it does in the old man’s office room where it breed dynasties of its old kind in the succulence in the Victorian parchment.

The neighbours celebrated the wedding anniversary of some deity all night. Next day, they distributed oily sweets in the plates. The plates of sweets which were given to the inmates of the house, never returned to their real owners. The inmates of the house, even after consuming the sweet, never bothered to return the empty plates to their neighbours. The plates made the house their permanent residence.

They (plates) stayed in the house like the servants, gramophones and diseases like epilepsy. The servants, who were once given employment in the house, never left the house. The gramophones which were brought in, continued to remain there. Diseases like epilepsy which ran in the family never left the house because there was always some member of the family or the other who became a sufferer of the disease. Epilepsy had become family disease.

 

Sons-in-law and Women Who Remained Tied to the House:

Sons – in – law, who came to see their mothers – in – law or fathers – in – law, stayed in the house and never left the house. Even they forgot the affection of their own mothers. The atmosphere of this house fascinated them very much. They made this house their permanent abode. They were asked by their mothers – in – law to check the domestic accounts or by the fathers – in – law to check their office accounts.

In other words, they were employed to perform the domestic and official duties. They had no dare to reject the proposal of their mothers and fathers – in – law. Or they were asked to stay on to teach arithmetic to the daughters of their brothers – in – law. In this way they got the job to serve the family of this house.

Women, who came as wives of some of the male members of the family, never went back and remained in the house permanently. They were greatly absorbed in the atmosphere of this house. They never remembered their parents and the members of their family. They had become accustomed to witness the monsoons beating against the banana trees growing outside.

 

Things That Went Out and Returned: Cotton, Cloth, and Letters:

There was another category of things which went out but which always returned to the great house. For instance, the bales of cotton were shipped off to Manchester in the U.K. In the U.K. , there were cloth mills which were equipped with the modern machinery and where different types of cloth were manufactured . There, the cotton was converted into yarn and then it was woven into cloth.

The bales of cotton returned as packages of cloth. The manufacturers of the cloth mills of Manchester attached the long bills of expenses with the packages of cloth. The family of the great house had to pay the length bills in the form of manufacturing charges.

The male members of the family used the cloth in the packages as loin – cloth if it was coarse cloth and the fine and the smooth cloth was used by them as their night dresses. Letters which were posted by the members of the family found their way back to the house as they were not delivered or sent to their destination and were redirected to the house, with many red ink marks on them.

 

Ideas Turning into Rumours and Returning to the House:

Not only the things, but even ideas left the house and came back to house in the form of rumours. During the conversation and gossip between the members of the family of the house and visitors, many matters on different subjects were discussed and the opinions of the people were put to be implemented. But the visitors, who also participated in the conversation with the members of the family of the house, carried out the things and ideas and communicated them to others. In this way the ideas discussed in the house took the form of rumours.

The ideas of the family were revealed publicly. These rumours were then brought to the house by other visitors who did not that these rumours had got their existence in this house. What an uncle in the family living in this house might have said on a certain occasion, was repeated by some visitor. Perhaps the visitor had no idea that an uncle in this very family had made those remarks which he was now communicating to the family.

The uncle might have said that the contents of some book written by Plotinus pertained to what some conqueror like Alexander the Great had looted from the territory which lay between two rivers and which was a breeding – place for mosquitoes causing malaria . A beggar once came in with a violin to play a prostitute song which their cook sang all the time in the backyard in his harsh voice.

The song sung by the cook had no sweetness like that beggar. The cook was in the habit of reciting that song, but the beggar sang under the expectation of getting some money.

 

Daughters, Sons, and Grandchildren Who Returned to the House:

There was nothing which could remain far from this house for a long time. Whatever and whosoever left the house subsequently came back. The daughters of this house were married and sent to their husbands ‘ house but they could not live with their husbands for longer. Perhaps their marriage proved a compromise for them.

 

Their marriage was a short termed marriage. They thought their husbands to be idiots and it was difficult for them to pass their life with those idiots who could not make the daughters of this house happy. When their life with them was unbearable, they left them (their husbands) and returned to the house. It was thought that either their husbands turned them out and sent back to their house or they willingly left the house of their husbands.

Sons of the house who ran away, also subsequently came back with their own children because they married when they were away from their house and their wives gave birth to the boys. Their children (grandsons) performed various services for elders in the family. The little children made their elders happy by reciting the verses of Sanskrit. In this way they introduced the rich Indian culture.

The elders felt proud to see their little children as a true embodiment of culture and moral values. The elders, especially the old men of the house were highly pleased in the children’s company. They performed every duty whole heartedly whether it is religious or social. They showed the same reverence to the visiting uncles. They tried to please the family by bringing betel – nuts for the uncles.

The visiting uncles had many anecdotes to tell the children about their fathers and ancestors. They entertained the children by telling them anecdotes. Sometime the visitors came to see the old man who was at the edge of death or was taking his last breath. They brought a vessel full of water from the river of Ganga some of which could be sprinkled upon some old man who was about to die in the house.

 

The Tragic Return of the Son and the Nephew as Corpses:

The poet mentions a very heart-rending incident related to one of the sons and nephew of this house. He very skilfully mingles the comic and pathetic. He describes a son of this house who had run away from this house, but when he returned, he was not a living person, but a corpse. The corpse had been half – eaten in the Sahara (or the Arabian Desert) by the foxes or other wild animals of the desert. This worst incident happened in the year 1943. Many years later, a nephew of the family who left this house to join army. He participated in many battles fought on the border.

Due to showing courage and bravery in war, he had won laurels. But on one occasion, he participated in a very fierceful battle fought on the border and during aggressive fight, he was killed while facing his enemies. He showed great courage, bravery and patriotism to defend his country and finally he sacrificed his life for the sake of country as a true patriot. He ultimately returned to the great house in the form of corpse.

His corpse was brought in plane, train and military truck. In this way his return to house was very tragic. When his dead body arrived to house, it was a good afternoon which encouraged a chat or a conversation or idle gossip, but this afternoon was converted into a sorrowful noon. Every member of the family, instead of enjoying the good noon, drowned in sorrow, though before the arrival of his dead body, telegram had reached to the house.

 

Detailed Analysis

Lines 1-6

Sometimes I think that nothing

that ever comes into this house

goes out. Things that come in everyday

to lose themselves among other things

lost long ago among

other things lost long ago;

In the first lines of ‘Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House,’ the speaker begins by describing a house. This house is special because everything comes into it, and nothing goes out. The speaker means this physically, emotionally, and mentally. He describes how things come into the house every day, and “lose themselves among other things”. The things pile up on top of other things, all of which came into the house at varying times.

In these lines, time and accumulation appear to be important to the speaker. Whatever phenomenon is occurring inside the house, it has been going on for a long time.  So far, it seems as though the speaker is interested in talking about history, specifically family, or genealogical history, and how it is built up over generations.

 

Lines 7-13

lame wandering cows from nowhere

have been known to be tethered,

given a name, encouraged

 

to get pregnant in the broad daylight

of the street under the elders’

supervision, the girls hiding

 

behind windows with holes in them.

In the next set of lines of ‘Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House’ the speaker goes into detail about some of the things which end up inside the house. The first, are “wandering cows”.  All of a sudden, they’re at the house, and it is unclear where they came from. The speaker describes how from within the house, girls would look out on the street and observe the female cows being impregnated by the males.

It is interesting how the speaker exposes these animals by emphasizing the “broad daylight”. of the situation. This speaks to something untoward, not in the behavior of the cows, but if that same behavior were to be replicated by human beings. This is emphasized by the fact that the girls inside the house feel as though they need to hide “behind windows with holes in them” to watch the animals. Additionally, it is interesting how the speaker refers to the cows as supervised by the elders. The older members of the family are responsible for these animals.

 

Lines 14-19

Unread library books

usually mature in two weeks

and begin to lay a row

 

of little eggs in the ledgers

for fines, as silverfish

in the old man’s office room

The speaker goes on to describe a few other items within the house. There are “unread library books”, which go bad very quickly. The speaker does not make clear what he means by “mature,” but, it could refer to the fact that they have become overdue at the library. Or, that those who were initially interested in them have cast them to the side without a second thought. As they lay maturing in the house, they turned into homes for silverfish. These bugs leave “little eggs in the ledgers”. Specifically, the eggs appear where the library fines would be listed.

 

Lines 20-26

breed dynasties among long legal words

in the succulence

of Victorian parchment.

 

Neighbours’ dishes brought up

with the greasy sweets they made

all night the day before yesterday

 

for the wedding anniversary of a god,

This line moves into the next, with the speaker describing the “old man’s office room.” The actions of the silverfish are further explained in this section. The books they nest in have been discarded for such a long time, that the creatures have been able to “breed dynasties among long legal words”. This contrasts strikingly with the “Victorian parchment” which should have an intrinsic worth.

The next stanza of ‘Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House’ speaks about the community and the dishes that were brought in by the neighbors. Nothing in this poem is contemporary. Everything, so far at least, has happened in the past. The neighbors brought in “greasy sweets“a few days ago, “for the wedding anniversary ever God”. This speaks to the predominance of the Hindu religion throughout India. But also gives theSpirituality act of feeding a God a feeling of the commonplace. The dishes have been left behind, as though they were dishes for any living person.

 

Lines 27-35

never leave the house they enter,

like the servants, the phonographs,

the epilepsies in the blood,

sons-in-law who quite forget

their mothers, but stay to check

accounts or teach arithmetic to nieces,

 

or the women who come as wives

from houses open on one side

to rising suns, on another

Line twenty-seven of ‘Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House’ begins by reiterating the fact that these dishes, along with everything else, are never going to leave the house they entered.

Over the next few lines the items, people, and experiences build upon one another quickly. Some of the things that never leave the house are servants and “phonographs,” the latter of reference to old-fashioned record players. Less tangibly, epilepsy in the blood does not easily leave a home. This is a very clear reference to family history, specifically, blood relations. With this line, a reader can confirm the poet’s interest in tracing the history of his family through what the house has seen. He goes on, to describe sons-in-law who forget their mothers but stay in the house for other reasons.

 

Lines 36-42

to the setting, accustomed

to wait and to yield to monsoons

in the mountains' calendar

 

beating through the hanging banana leaves

And also anything that goes out

will come back, processed and often

with long bills attached,

Some young women enter the house from orthodox families and have to observe certain rituals. These are centered around the comings and goings of the monsoons and calendar dates. Another important aspect that can be found in association with the young women and the household is banana trees. The leaves, which have some uses, reference traditional mealtime practices, including dietary restrictions.

For the first time, the next stanza allows something to leave the house. As soon as it exits, it “will come back“. But, it is often changed. He speaks about these things exiting and coming back with “long bills attached“. At this point is unclear what the speaker is referring to, but beginning in line forty-three, it becomes evident.

 

Lines 43-48

like the hooped bales of cotton

shipped off to invisible Manchesters

and brought back milled and folded

 

for a price, cloth for our days'

middle-class loins, and muslin

for our richer nights. Letters mailed

In lines forty-three to forty-eight, the speaker describes “hooped bales of cotton”. These are some of the items that leave the family and return processed. The cotton in particular goes off to “invisible Manchesters”. And when it comes back, it is “milled and folded”. This is a simple reference to the way it is processed within a factory. There are different kinds of cloth in the family, kinds for “middle-class loins” and another cheap fabric, “muslin,” which the speaker says is for “richer nights”.

 

Lines 49-55

have a way of finding their way back

with many re-directions to wrong

addresses and red ink-marks

 

earned in Tiruvalla and Sialkot.

And ideas behave like rumours,

once casually mentioned somewhere

they come back to the door as prodigies

The next stanza of ‘Small-Scale Reflections on a Great House’  speaks about letters. In this case, as with everything else in the house, the letters have a way of “finding their way back”. But, it’s not always an easy process. There are often markings on the letters that tell of the various twists and turns they took along the way to find their way back to the house. This is one of the clearest metaphors in the poem. It speaks directly to the way that family members emerge from the household, enter out into the wider world, and after a time, drift back to the family home. These people would be changed, and “marked” by their experiences.

This interpretation is solidified when the speaker describes ideas and the way they “behave like rumours”.  These rumours come and go from their origins, twisting and changing, but eventually coming back as “prodigies / born to prodigal fathers”. These children return to their families but, only “vaguely look like” the people they remember.

 

Lines 56-61

born to prodigal fathers, with eyes

that vaguely look like our own,

like what Uncle said the other day:

 

that every Plotinus we read

is what some Alexander looted

between the malarial rivers.

The next lines are a little bit vaguer. But, they refer to Alexander the Great and his exploits in India. It is not specifically Alexander the speaker is interested in talking about, but rather those like him. These are the people who come to the country, take information, of any variety, and bring it back to their homes. Then there are others, such as the philosopher Plotinus who use the information relayed to them and cite it as their own.

 

Lines 62-68

A beggar once came with a violin

to croak out a prostitute song

that our voiceless cook sang

all the time in our backyard.

 

Nothing stays out: daughters

get married to short-lived idiots;

sons who run away come back

Moving away from distant history, but still, in the realm of storytelling, the speaker describes how a beggar came to the house and sang a “prostitute song”. After hearing the tune, the cook sang it repetitively in the backyard of the house. There is nothing that the family can keep from becoming part of their history. Through surprising means and twists of fate objects, people, songs and stories become integral pieces of a family‘s history.

 

Lines 69-74

in grand children who recite Sanskrit

to approving old men, or bring

betel nuts for visiting uncles

 

who keep them gaping with

anecdotes of unseen fathers,

or to bring Ganges water

Perhaps in the previous lines about prodigal sons and their progeny, the speaker describes how often children of sons come back and “recite Sanskrit / to approving old men”. These are the grandchildren who are learning the history of India and are looked upon favorably by their grandparents.

Additionally, the speaker describes visiting uncles. These family members come with stories to tell of the fathers who are not present. They are “anecdotes”, a choice of word that should lead a reader to question the veracity of the stories.

 

Lines 75-81

in a copper pot

for the last of the dying

ancestors' rattle in the throat.

 

And though many times from everywhere,

recently only twice:

once in nineteen-forty-three

from as far as the Sahara,

As the poem begins to come to an end, the speaker describes how often water from the Ganges River is carried into the house for the dying. This is a common ritual performed in Brahmin families, of which the poet is a part.

The next stanza is a little more confusing. It references how certain family members sometimes go to war, but they come back, even if they are changed. Sometimes they go “as far away as the Sahara”.

 

Lines 82-91

half -gnawed by desert foxes,

and lately from somewhere

in the north, a nephew with stripes

 

on his shoulder was called

an incident on the border

and was brought back in plane

 

and train and military truck

even before the telegrams reached,

on a perfectly good

 

Chatty afternoon

In line eighty-two the way that one particular soldier was changed is explained. This person was “gnawed by desert foxes,” suffering, presumably, serious injuries. Another male family member also returned but he came with “stripe/on his shoulder”.

Unfortunately for this man, he was not alive. He was brought back in a plane, a train, and then a military truck. All of this occurred very efficiently the transit of the body reached the family before the telegram notifying them of the death did.