Servants Full Poem By Gieve Patel - Analysis and Explanation

 Servants

They come of Peasant stock
Truant from an insufficient plot

Lights are shut off after dinner
But the city blur enters

Picks modulations on the skin
The dark around them.
Is brown links body to body
Or is dispelled
And the hard fingers
Glow as the smoke is inhaled
And the lighted end of tobacco
Becomes an orange spot

Other hands are wide
Or shut, it does not matters
One way or other
They sit without thoughts
Mouth slightly open, recovering
From the day, and the eyes

Globe into the dim
Bur are not informed because
Never have travelled beyond this silence

They sit like animals.
I mean no offence.

I have seen
Animals resting in their stall
The oil flame reflected in their eyes

Large beads that though protruding
Actually rest
Behind the regular grind
Of the jaws.

- Gieve Patel

Explanation

The poem depicts the picture of servants who were farmers someday. Nevertheless, now they are discarded from their plot, and they are now helpless. And now the peasants are leaving their plot and migrating towards the city in search of livelihood.

In the beginning, the poet says that servants are entirely unaware and unfamiliar in the city. A dim light is nearby them. Darkness always surrounds them as their companion. Tobacco in their stiff fingers is now the only source of relief to them. They are thinking but with no thoughts, seeing but with no sign of hope and have no idea about this new world (city). They have gloomy eyes with no sign of hope. They would try to rest after the day-long hard work, but the hopelessness in their eyes always stopped them.

Further, the poet says that they are lost in this faint light of the city. Their journey is beyond their limits. The ending of this indifferent journey is still known to them. The poet compares the peasants to animals in the ending lines because they are innocent; they offer no offence to anything. They accept and tolerate pain and pleasure. The rigorousness and harshness of life have made them indifferent. Their minds are still. However, now all the pains are like part of their life, and they are practised. Nevertheless, the hope of life and livelihood is still alive in their eyes.

Theme

The poem depicts the theme of troubles and hardships that all farmers face when their plot is discarded. The poem also depicts how farmers face their life while migrating to a city. The poem illustrates that the search for livelihood is adamant in the strange environment of the city. The problems make them neutral. Their passion, their desires, all are dead now. They are just passing and surviving their days with no hope and will.

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