The
Epileptic – Keki N. Dharuwalla
“The Epileptic” is a poem
written by Indian English poet Keki. N. Daruwalla. He is a poet of great
literary stamina, intellectual strength and social awareness.
Epilepsy is a nervous disease
causing a person unconscious often with involuntary movements. In the poem, a
pregnant woman got this violent fit while she was travelling in a rickshaw. By
the grace of God, her pregnancy was safe. But, her two children were frightened.
The rickshaw puller was guilty because it was happening in his rickshaw.
The face of the epileptic became
a mound of flesh. Her husband was making vain efforts. He tried to open her
mouth wide, plucked out her receding tongue, and put a gag into her mouth to
keep it open.
The traffic on the road came to
an inquisitive half. The crowd were anxious. They joined to help the woman.
Some people fanned her. Some rubbed her feet. They tried their best to summon
back her senses. A pedestrian commented that her violent fits were cyclic in
nature. They visit her repeatedly whenever she was in her menses.
She was not hysteric. She did
not talk violently. A simmering foam was coming out of her mouth. The woman was
taken to the hospital. After long discussions and tests, the doctors diagnosed
the disease as ‘Psychomotor Epilepsy’. After much fuss, they prescribed common
drugs like ‘Belladona’ and ‘Peraldehyde’.
Finally she recovered from her
fit. She was pale and completely exhausted. The last sentence of the poem is
charged heavily with irony. Until now, the wife shook. But now it is the turn
of the husband to shake. The shake of the husband may be from the thought about
the excessive hospital fees.
hahaha the last line
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