Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa T. S.

About the poet
Nissim Ezekiel (24 December 1924 – 9 January 2004) was an Indian Jewish actor, playwright, editor and art-critic. He was a foundational figure in postcolonial India's literary history, specifically for Indian writing in English.

He was awarded the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1983 for his Poetry collection, "Latter-Day Psalms", by the Sahitya Akademi, India's National Academy of Letters.[2] Ezekiel is universally recognized and appreciated as being one of the most notable and accomplished Indian English language poets of the 20th century, applauded for his subtle, restrained and well crafted diction, dealing with common and mundane themes in a manner that manifests both cognitive profundity, as well as an unsentimental, realistic sensibility, that has been influential on the course of succeeding Indian English poetry. Ezekiel enriched and established Indian English language poetry through his modernist innovations and techniques, which enlarged Indian English literature, moving it beyond purely spiritual and orientalist themes, to include a wider range of concerns and interests, including mundane familial events, individual angst and skeptical societal introspection.

Summary
This is one of the poems of Ezekiel which illustrate a major characteristic of the later phase of his poetic career, namely his preoccupation with Indian themes, a preoccupation to which he seems to have been led by his acceptance of the reality of the Indian situation. Included in his Hymns in Darkness, this poem was one of the eight poems which appeared in the 1970s under the group Very Indian Poems in Indian English.

Though this poem is often described as a parody of or satire on Indian English illustrating the idiolectical features of the brand of English used by Gujarati speakers, as a humorous reconstruction of a particular variety of Indian English, it is actually “a satiric self-revelation of the speaker”. As Bruce King has put it, “Language reveals the speaker’s mind and social context; clichés, triteness, unintended puns are among the devices used to imply hypocrisy, pretence, limited opportunities and confusion”.

Note the Indianness inherent in the very title of the poem, the occurrence of the initials at the end of the name, a very Indian habit both in speech and writing. Even ‘goodbye party’ seems to be an Indian imitation of ‘birthday party’!

Words to Know

Bon voyage : Used to express farewell and good wishes to a departing traveller

External : Relating to, existing on, or connected with the outside or an outer part

Internal : Of, relating to, or located within the limits or surface

Babu English
Ezekiel wrote many of his works, including "Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa T.S.,” in the dialect of urban Indians, particularly those in Bombay, according to Dominic. This dialect is called “Babu English.” Originally, the colonial British used the word “babu” as a derogatory term when referring to subordinate Indians who spoke English as a second language, according to The Hindu website. A “Babu” was a person who tried to impress a British master using stylish ornamentation, as the way that he expressed a message was more important than information relayed.

Human Foibles
The main theme in the "Goodbye Party for Miss Pushpa T.S.” isn’t the loss of a friend -- it’s human foibles, or character faults. According to Dominic, this is a popular theme among Ezekiel’s works. The poem offers a satirical look at how some people in India speak English, a device that the poet presumably used to get an Indian reader to laugh at himself. The poem misuses the present continuous tense and uses turns of phrases and syntax found in the Indian language, like when Ezekiel writes, “Whatever I or anybody is asking/ She is always saying yes.” The poem also hints at dramatic irony if the reader infers that the speaker’s audience at the farewell party doesn’t know that his English is grammatically incorrect.

Other Works of the writer
More poems by Nissim Ezekiel, Click here