Complete Summary and Solutions for Blood – NCERT Class XII KALEIDOSCOPE English Elective, Chapter 8 – Poetry Summary, Explanation, Questions, Answers

Introduction to Poetry - Kaleidoscope

A poem is a composition in verse, usually characterised by concentrated and heightened language in which words are chosen for their sound and suggestive power as well as for their meaning, and using techniques such as rhythm and metre. To read and hear good poetry is to appreciate the subtleties of cadence and rhythm, the variety of pace and pattern and all that goes to make up the music of poetry.

Every poem that we read adds to, in some degree, our total conception of poetry.

Of the eight poets in this selection, four are from the classical tradition: Donne, Milton, Blake and Coleridge. The other four are closer to contemporary times: Yeats, A.K. Ramanujan, Emily Dickinson and Kamala Das.

Key Elements of Poetry

Language: Concentrated, heightened, sound-focused for evocative effect.
Techniques: Rhythm, metre, suggestive power to create musicality.
Appreciation: Cadence, pattern, and the 'music' that elevates emotion and intellect.
Traditions: Classical (e.g., Donne's metaphysical wit) vs. Contemporary (e.g., Das's confessional feminism).

Points to Ponder

How does Das's 'Blood' expand your 'total conception of poetry' through intimate familial decay and bloodline introspection?
Compare Das's personal revolt with classical restraint: What unites them in poetic 'music'?

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Poet: Kamala Das (1934-2009)

One of the greatest literary figures in Malayalam, Kamala Das was born in 1934 in Punnayurkulam, South Malabar, Kerala. Her work in poetry and prose has given her a permanent place in modern Malayalam literature as well as in Indian writing in English. She is best known for her feminist writings and focus on womanhood.

She has been the recipient of such famous awards as the Poetry Award for the Asian PEN Anthology, the Kerala Sahitya Akademi Award for the best collection of short stories in Malayalam, and the Chaman Lal Award for fearless journalism.

Key Style: Confessional Feminism

Intimate, raw prose-poetry blending Malayalam roots with English candor.
Focus on womanhood, decay, class, and ancestral burdens.

Life Highlights

Born into Nair aristocracy; early marriage shaped feminist voice.
Converted to Islam (Madhavikutty to Kamala Surayya); prolific in dual languages.

Influence & Legacy

Pioneer of Indian confessional poetry; embodies bold exploration of identity, inspiring feminist literature.

Das's Worldview

Das's gaze pierces ancestral veils—blood as thin legacy of grandeur amid decay, where houses crumble like compromised souls, poetry a lament for the unkept promises of heritage.

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The Poem: Full Text & Summary

Detailed Summary: Blood

The poem is a poignant elegy for a decaying ancestral house, intertwined with memories of the great-grandmother's royal past and the poet's childhood promise to restore it. As the matriarch dies, the poet confronts the futility of wealth amid urban drift, haunted by guilt over the abandoned legacy. The "oldest blood"—thin, clear, fine—contrasts with the thick, muddy veins of the poor and nouveau riche, symbolizing faded aristocracy. White ants raise burial totems, rats scamper fearless; the poet seeks forgiveness, her blood remembering gems, gold, elephant rides, yet flowing onward to other towns.

Stanza 1: Childhood play amid crumbling house; great-grandmother's grief.

Stanza 2: Promise to rebuild; grandmother's simple faith and princely tales.

Stanza 3: Bloodline pride; contrast with common veins.

Stanza 4: Deathbed gaze; house's grotesque life in moonlight.

Stanza 5: Cremation; departure, yet haunting decay and conscience conflict.

विस्तृत हिंदी सारांश: Blood

कविता एक क्षयग्रस्त पारंपरिक घर की मार्मिक श्रद्धांजलि है, जो परदादी की राजसी अतीत की स्मृतियों और कवयित्री की बचपन की बहाली की प्रतिज्ञा से जुड़ी हुई है। जब सासू मरती हैं, कवयित्री धन की व्यर्थता का सामना करती हैं शहरी प्रवास के बीच, परित्यक्त विरासत पर अपराधबोध से सताई हुईं। "सबसे पुराना खून"—पतला, साफ़, बारीक—गरीबों और नवधनाढ्यों की मोटी, कीचड़ भरी नसों से विपरीत, क्षीण कुलीनता का प्रतीक। सफेद चींटियाँ दफन टोटम उठाती हैं, चूहे निर्भय दौड़ते; कवयित्री क्षमा मांगती है, उसका खून रत्न, सोना, हाथी की सवारी याद करता है, फिर भी अन्य नगरों की ओर बहता।

Blood

When we were children

My brother and I

And always playing on the sands

Drawing birds and animals

Our great-grandmother said one day,

You see this house of ours

Now three hundred years old,

It’s falling to little bits

Before our very eyes

The walls are cracked and torn

And moistened by the rains,

The tiles have fallen here and there

The windows whine and groan

And every night

The rats come out of the holes

And scamper past our doors.

The snake-shrine is dark with weeds

And all the snake-gods in the shrine

Have lichen on their hoods.

O it hurts me she cried,

Wiping a reddened eye

For I love this house, it hurts me much

To watch it die.

When I grow old, I said,

And very very rich

I shall rebuild the fallen walls

And make new this ancient house.

My great-grandmother

Touched my cheeks and smiled.

She was really simple.

Fed on God for years

All her feasts were monotonous

For the only dish was always God

And the rest mere condiments.

She told us how she rode her elephant

When she was ten or eleven

Every Monday without fail

To the Siva shrine

And back to home again

And, told us of the jewel box

And the brocade from the north

And the perfumes and the oils

And the sandal for her breasts

And her marriage to a prince

Who loved her deeply for a lovely short year

And died of fever, in her arms

She told us

That we had the oldest blood

My brother and she and I

The oldest blood in the world

A blood thin and clear and fine

While in the veins of the always poor

And in the veins

Of the new-rich men

Flowed a blood thick as gruel

And muddy as a ditch.

Finally she lay dying

In her eighty sixth year

A woman wearied by compromise

Her legs quilted with arthritis

And with only a hard cough

For comfort

I looked deep into her eyes

Her poor bleary eyes

And prayed that she would not grieve

So much about the house.

I had learnt by then

Most lessons of defeat,

Had found out that to grow rich

Was a difficult feat.

The house was crouching

On its elbows then,

It looked that night in the pallid moon

So grotesque and alive.

When they burnt my great grandmother

Over logs of the mango tree

I looked once at the house

And then again and again

For I thought I saw the windows close

Like the closing of the eyes

I thought I heard the pillars groan

And the dark rooms heave a sigh.

I set forth again

For other towns,

Left the house with the shrine

And the sands

And the flowering shrubs

And the wide rabid mouth of the Arabian Sea.

I know the rats are running now

Across the darkened halls

They do not fear the dead

I know the white ants have reached my home

And have raised on walls

Strange totems of burial.

At night, in stillness,

From every town I live in

I hear the rattle of its death

The noise of rafters creaking

And the windows’ whine.

I have let you down

Old house, I seek forgiveness

O mother’s mother’s mother

I have plucked your soul

Like a pip from a fruit

And have flung it into your pyre

Call me callous

Call me selfish

But do not blame my blood

So thin, so clear, so fine

The oldest blood in the world

That remembers as it flows

All the gems and all the gold

And all the perfumes and the oils

And the stately

Elephant ride...

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Themes & Lyrical Analysis

Central Theme: Ancestral Decay & Guilt

Personification: House as living entity groaning, closing eyes in death.
Legacy: "Oldest blood" as faded nobility vs. modern compromises.
Tradition vs. Modernity: Crumbling heritage amid urbanization.

Key Imagery: Blood & House

Thin, clear blood evoking royal past (elephant rides, jewels); decaying house with weeds, rats—synesthetic lament of loss, where memory flows like unkept promises.

Conscience Conflict

Childhood vow broken by life's defeats; self-accusation of callousness.
Feminine gaze: Grandmother's weariness mirrors poet's revolt against grandeur.

Critical Appreciation

Das's 'Blood' pulses with confessional ache, where ancestral house mirrors soul's erosion—cracked walls, lichen-hooded gods, white-ant totems scripting burial rites. The thin blood remembers princely fever-death, sandal-scented breasts, yet flows to urban exile, unblamed yet unforgiven. This feminist elegy, raw as monsoon moisture, critiques class veins thick as gruel, poetry's red ink on heritage's pyre.

Discussion Prompts

How does Das's blood metaphor critique Indian class hierarchies and urbanization?
Does the poem's guilt reflect broader postcolonial loss of roots?

Responding to the Poem

1. What makes the depiction of a crumbling village house so authentic in the poem? Is this a common feature of most village houses in the context of rapid urbanisation? Is the poet speaking from actual experience?

Answer:

Authenticity from sensory details: Cracked walls, whining windows, scampering rats, weed-dark shrine—evoke tangible decay. Common in urbanization: Youth migrate, leaving heritage to crumble. Yes, autobiographical: Das's Kerala roots in Nair aristocracy inform personal loss.

2. What aspects of Indian society and history get highlighted in the poem?

Answer:

Aristocratic decline: Princely marriages, elephant rides to Siva shrine evoke feudal Nair history. Class: "Oldest blood" vs. poor/new-rich. Gender: Woman's compromised life, arthritis-quilted legs. Colonial/modern shift: Urban exodus erodes traditions.

3. Does the poem bring out the contrast between tradition and modernity? Illustrate your answer with examples from the poem.

Answer:

Yes: Tradition—300-year house, snake-gods, elephant to shrine, jewel-box grandeur. Modernity—Urban towns, "difficult feat" to grow rich, poet's departure to "other towns," white ants' "totems of burial" symbolizing forgotten rituals.

4. While the poet respected her grandmother’s sentiments of royal grandeur, we can also see that she revolts against it. Identify the lines which bring this out.

Answer:

Respect: Childhood promise to rebuild. Revolt: "Lessons of defeat," praying she "would not grieve so much about the house"; "I have plucked your soul / Like a pip from a fruit / And have flung it into your pyre"—rejects burdensome legacy.

5. Which lines reveal the poet’s criticism of class distinctions?

Answer:

"A blood thin and clear and fine / While in the veins of the always poor / And in the veins / Of the new-rich men / Flowed a blood thick as gruel / And muddy as a ditch"—satirizes aristocratic purity vs. vulgar commonality.

6. Is it ‘selfishness’ and ‘callousness’ that makes the poet break her childhood promise to her grandmother of renovating the house? Why does she do nothing about rebuilding the house?

Answer:

Not mere selfishness: Life's "lessons of defeat" and wealth's elusiveness compel pragmatism. Urban migration symbolizes broader detachment; rebuilding futile against time's decay and personal growth's demands.

7. What do you understand of the conflict in the poet’s conscience?

Answer:

Guilt vs. Liberation: Haunted by unkept vow ("I have let you down... seek forgiveness"), yet blood's memory burdens without action. Torn between filial duty and modern autonomy, soul-plucking as metaphor for severing ties.

Language Study

Comment on the changes in poetic expression in English from the time of Donne to that of Kamala Das with reference to • prosodic features (rhyme, rhythm and metre) • vocabulary • language • themes.

Changes in Poetic Expression:

Aspect	Donne (Metaphysical)	Kamala Das (Confessional)
Prosodic Features	Irregular metre, witty conceits; slant rhymes for intellectual jolt.	Free verse, conversational rhythm; no strict metre, emotional flow.
Vocabulary	Learned, alchemical terms; extended metaphors from science/religion.	Colloquial, sensory Malayalam-infused English; intimate, bodily words.
Language	Argumentative, dramatic monologue; intellectual seduction.	Raw, confessional narrative; feminist candor, personal vulnerability.
Themes	Love/death as cosmic puzzles; unified wit-soul.	Identity, decay, gender oppression; postcolonial personal loss.

Task: How does Das's free verse liberate Donne's conceits into emotional truth?

Interactive Quiz - Test Your Understanding

10 MCQs on poem, poet, themes, and language. Aim for 80%+ for mastery!

Complete Summary and Solutions for Blood – NCERT Class XII KALEIDOSCOPE English Elective, Chapter 8 – Poetry Summary, Explanation, Questions, Answers

Detailed summary and explanation of Chapter 8 'Blood' by Kamala Das from the NCERT Class XII KALEIDOSCOPE English Elective textbook, highlighting the poet's biography, thematic analysis, imagery, social commentary, and all NCERT questions and answers.

Blood

Introduction to Poetry - Kaleidoscope

Key Elements of Poetry

Points to Ponder

Poet: Kamala Das (1934-2009)

Key Style: Confessional Feminism

Life Highlights

Influence & Legacy

Das's Worldview

The Poem: Full Text & Summary

Detailed Summary: Blood

विस्तृत हिंदी सारांश: Blood

Blood

Themes & Lyrical Analysis

Central Theme: Ancestral Decay & Guilt

Key Imagery: Blood & House

Conscience Conflict

Critical Appreciation

Discussion Prompts

Responding to the Poem

1. What makes the depiction of a crumbling village house so authentic in the poem? Is this a common feature of most village houses in the context of rapid urbanisation? Is the poet speaking from actual experience?

2. What aspects of Indian society and history get highlighted in the poem?

3. Does the poem bring out the contrast between tradition and modernity? Illustrate your answer with examples from the poem.

4. While the poet respected her grandmother’s sentiments of royal grandeur, we can also see that she revolts against it. Identify the lines which bring this out.

5. Which lines reveal the poet’s criticism of class distinctions?

6. Is it ‘selfishness’ and ‘callousness’ that makes the poet break her childhood promise to her grandmother of renovating the house? Why does she do nothing about rebuilding the house?

7. What do you understand of the conflict in the poet’s conscience?

Language Study

Comment on the changes in poetic expression in English from the time of Donne to that of Kamala Das with reference to • prosodic features (rhyme, rhythm and metre) • vocabulary • language • themes.

Interactive Quiz - Test Your Understanding

Suggested Reading

Core Das Works

Further Exploration

Group Discussions