In the famous Class 9 English poem 'Wind', originally written by the great Tamil poet Subramania Bharati, the poet talks to the wind as if it were a powerful, destructive god. To explain how the wind affects human beings, the poet uses an agricultural metaphor involving the process of 'Winnowing'.
The original poem was written in the Tamil language during the Indian freedom struggle. It was later beautifully translated into English by the famous Indian poet and mathematician A.K. Ramanujan.
The poet says: "The wind god winnows and crushes them all."
According to the poet, the Wind God winnows everything that is weak and fragile. This includes crumbling weak houses, weak doors, weak rafters, weak wood, weak bodies, and ultimately, weak human hearts. The fierce wind violently separates the strong from the weak, destroying and crushing anyone who does not have the strength to stand firm.
To fully understand the metaphor, you must know what the actual word means. Winnowing is a traditional farming method. Farmers throw a mixture of harvested wheat grains and dry chaff (husk) into the air. The heavy, strong, useful wheat grains fall straight to the ground. But the light, useless, weak chaff is instantly blown away by the wind.
The poet brilliantly compares human beings to this grain. The 'Wind God' represents the hardships, struggles, and massive challenges of human life. Just like the agricultural wind blows away the weak chaff, the struggles of life completely crush weak-hearted people, while strong people survive and become even stronger.
Because the Wind God will not listen to our prayers to be gentle, the poet gives a simple solution: Instead of crying, we must build strong homes, make our bodies firm, and make our hearts steadfast. If we become physically and mentally strong, the wind (hardships) will become our friend, just like the wind makes a strong fire burn even brighter!
No. In the very first stanza, the poet begs the wind to come softly and not break the window shutters. But the wind ignores him completely, tearing the pages of the books and bringing heavy rain. This shows that the harsh realities of life do not listen to our pleas for an easy life.
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