After Apple Picking

"After Apple-Picking" is a dream vision, and from the outset it proposes that only labor can penetrate to the essential facts of natural life. These include, in this case, the discovery of the precarious balances whenever one season shifts to another, the exhaustions of the body, and the possible consequences of "falling," which are blemish and decay. When the penetration of "facts" or of matter occurs through labor, the laborer, who may also be the poet, becomes vaguely aware that what had before seemed solid and unmalleable is also part of a collective "dream" and partakes of myth.

It is basically a pastoral poem, appearing first in the collection of poems titled ‘North of Boston’. The poem presents the simple and uncomplicated life of a farmer who has worked very hard the entire day picking up apples. Frost dramatizes nature by giving it an essence and meaning of its own. It is a benefactor because it gives life and sustenance to man. The farmer speaks of the self-satisfaction which he gets in his work that is solely dependent upon Nature. He recreates in a beautiful way the soothing bounty of Nature - the warmth of the sun, the air filled with the scent of apples while the ladder sticks through a tree as the farmer goes on picking apples and dropping them carefully into the empty barrels. His long day of hard-work is slowly drawing to an end, and it is not surprising that he is feeling very tired. The apples symbolize the ripeness and richness of nature and also the never ending love which a farmer has for his work.

Pastoral poetry flourished most vigorously in the age of Theocritus and Virgil among the ancients, and during the Renaissance in modern times. But with the passing of time pastoral poetry in England lost its naturalness and simplicity, and became artificial and conventional. The unhappy shepherd, the fair shepherdess, the wandering flock, the daisies and violets, the dance on the village green, the flowery wreath, and the oaten pipe, all came to be regarded as the essential part of the pastoral, and were used by one poet after another, as the conventional decor of their poems. However, Frost's poetry is entirely free from such conventional and artificial elements. He has succeeded in capturing the simplicity and naturalness of the earliest Greek masters of this form. The greatness of Frost as a pastoral poet has been universally recognized. The Onset, An Old Man's Winter Night, Out, Out, etc. all deal with incidents and characters taken from rural life, but these events and characters are invested with a rich symbolic significance. The rural world holds the centre of his attention, but it is made to imply and suggest much more.

On the simplest narrative level, the poem describes how, after a strenuous day of apple-picking, the speaker dreams dreams in which his previous activities return to him 'magnified', blurred and distorted by memory and sleep. On a deeper level, however, it presents us with an experience in which the world of normal consciousness and the world that lies beyond it meet and mingle. 'I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight', says the narrator, and this strangeness, the 'essence of winter sleep', is something he shares with the reader. The dreamy confusion of the rhythm, the curiously 'echoing' effect of the irregular, unpredictable rhyme scheme, the mixing of tenses, tones, and senses, the hypnotic repetition of sensory detail: all these things promote a transformation of reality that comes, paradoxically, from a close observation of the real, its shape, weight, and fragrance, rather than any attempt to soar above it –

Magnified apples appear and disappear, 

Stem end and blossom end,

And every fleck of russet showing clear.

As usual, in this poem Frost hovers between the daylight world of commonsense reality and the dream world of possibility, the voices of sense and of song, the visions of the pragmatist and the prophet, the compulsions of the road and the seductions of the woods. The apple-picker sets out wakefully to accomplish what he has all along been doing in a daze, unconsciously - to make metaphors and to generalize on his experience - the result is a tangle of confusions. Obviously, the "woodchuck" could not "say" anything, and its capacity to make a metaphoric discrimination between its own and human sleep is rendered comic by the speaker's ascription to himself of the power only to "describe" the coming on of sleep.

In his overtired state the apple-picker might indeed want a sleep equivalent to the hibernation of a woodchuck rather than a "human sleep." His sleep will be human precisely because it will be a disturbed, dream- and myth-ridden sleep. Human sleep is more than animal sleep for the very reason that it is bothered by memories of what it means to pick apples. After that famous picking in the Garden of Eden, human life, awake or sleeping, has been a dream, and words are compacted of the myths we dream of about the fall and redemption of souls.

Consequences of Urbanization

The consequeuences are more severe and it lead to The process of urbanization is preceding a pace without commensurate growth in industrialization and the rise in the level of overall economic development. Unplanned urban growth, for instance causes growth of slums and squatter settlements, varying affects on environmental degradation and increased burden on existing infrastructure. The general problems which are the by product of certain kind of urbanization characteristic of low income countries are:

Shortage of Houses: The problem that perhaps causes the most concern to a majority of urban dwellers is that of finding an appropriate place to live in. According to Tenth Five Year Plan the nation needed twenty two million additional houses. Inadequate housing that forces more than fifty percent of our population in some metropolis to live in slums, all these severely decrease the quality of life and lower the well being of urban population.

Critical Inadequacies in Public Utilities
Massive problem   have emerged due to rapid growth of urban population without a corresponding increase in urban infrastructure like safe drinking water, preventive health services, sanitation facility, adequate power supply and provisioning of basic amenities. Minimum basic facility is also not available for many cities. The existing urban health services are under tremendous pressure to meet the demands of all  needy people. The quality of life for the bulk of urban population involves many avoidable hardships. Poor urban infrastructure, congested roads, poor public transport, improper treatment of sewage, uncollected solid waste are the general feature of urban settlements. According to Urbanization report of World Bank only fifty eight percent of urban population of India has access to improved sanitation facilities.

Deteriorating Urban Environment: India is the world's fifth-largest producer of global warming gas and emissions (USA leads the race). The problem of pollution is more severe in big cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai. In India, urban areas are more developed and industrialized than the rural areas, and this attracts still more people to the urban areas. Thus there is more pressure on facilities like transport services, housing and drainage facilities, as well as more production of other goods required by the urban population, which in turn results in the release of large amounts of wastes and pollutants. The rapid growth in urban population, which affects patterns of production and consumption, is a principal source of pressure on the environment. A common and general instance that can be cited here is the contamination of water and rising level of toxins in almost all major rivers of India due to heavy disposal of sewage wastes, excreta and chemical wastes. Due to large migration of population to urban areas the threat to the environment becomes inevitable and it not only leads to environmental degradation but also the increasing vulnerability to infectious disease and congestion.

Poverty: Poverty in India can be defined as a situation only when a section of peoples are unable to satisfy the basic needs of life. According to an expert group of Planning Commission, poverty lines in rural areas are drawn with an intake of 2400 calories in rural areas and 2100 calories in urban areas. If the person is unable to get that minimum level of calories is considered as being below poverty line. In the cities people are suffering from acute poverty and the living conditions is so poor that in one small room all family members are staying and this is common feature of people who are living below poverty line. The speed of population growth and levels of poverty in mega cities such as Mumbai, Kolkata, Delhi and Hyderabad pose immense infrastructural problems.

Rise of New Classes

The emergence of new social classes in India was the direct consequences of the establishment a new social economy, a new type of state system and state administrative machinery and the spread of new education during the British rule.

The new social classes involved in the Indian society during the British rule were: in agrarian area, they were: (1) zamindars created by the British Government, (2) absentee landlords, (3) tenant under zamindars and absentee landlords, (4) the class of peasant proprietors, (5) agricultural labourers, (6) the modern class of merchants and (7) the modern class of money lenders. In urban areas, they were: (1) modern class of capitalist, industrial, commercial and financial; (2) the modern working class engaged in industrial, transport, mining and such other enterprises, (3) the class of pretty traders and shopkeepers, (4) the professional classes such as technicians, doctors, lawyers, professors, journalists, managers, clerks and others, comprising the intelligentsia and the educated middle class.

The introduction of private property in land in the form of Zamindari and Ryotwari by the British government brought into being the new classes of large estate owners, the zamindars, and peasant proprietors. Further, the creation of the right to lease land brought into being such as tenants and sub-tenants; the creation of to purchase and sell land together with the right to hire and employ labour on land, created conditions for the growth of the class of absentee landlords and that of the agricultural proletariat.

In the agrarian area, a group of modern money lenders and merchants who were unknown in pre-British Indian society, developed on an increasing scale. They are intermediaries between the peasants and the market, and absentee landlords.

In the rural area, the classes of money lenders and merchants existed in pre-British India. But the role was transformed when the new land system was introduced. So, the class of modern money lenders and merchants might be described as new social classes linked up with the new capitalist economy and performing functions quite different from pre-British Indian society.

Under the British rule, the internal and external trade expanded which resulted in the emergence of a class of commercial bourgeoisie, who engaged in extensive internal and foreign trade. These new merchant classes traded in all production, rural and urban, agriculture and industrial in the country.

The professional classes comprising modern lawyers, doctors, teachers, professors, managers, clerks, engineers, chemists, technologies, journalists and others, formed another new social group, which evolved in Indian society during the British period. These social groups linked up with modern industry, agriculture, commerce, finance, administration, press and other sections of the new social life, were unknown to pre-British Indian society since such a social, economic, and class system did not then exist.

In addition to the new classes enumerated above, there existed in the urban area, in every town and city, a big class of petty traders and shopkeepers which had dev with the growth of modern cities and towns.

The Caste System

In ancient India there developed a social system in which people were divided into separate close communities. These communities are known in English as caste. The origin of the caste system is in Hinduism, but it affected the whole Indian society. The caste system in the religious form is basically a simple division of society in which there are four castes arranged in a hierarchy and below them the outcast. But socially the caste system was more complicated, with much more castes and sub-castes and other divisions. Legally the government disallows the practice of caste system but has a policy of affirmative discrimination of the backward classes.

The leaders of independent India decided that India will be democratic, socialist and secular country. According to this policy there is a separation between religion and state. Practicing untouchability or discriminating a person based on his caste is legally forbidden. Along with this law the government allows positive discrimination of the depressed classes of India.

 In modern India the term caste is used for Jat and also for Varna. The term, caste was used by the British who ruled India until 1947. The British who wanted to rule India efficiently made lists of Indian communities. They used two terms to describe Indian communities. Castes and Tribes. The term caste was used for Jats and also for Varnas. Tribes were those communities who lived deep in jungles, forests and mountains far away from the main population and also communities who were hard to be defined as castes for example communities who made a living from stealing or robbery. These lists, which the British made, were used later on by the Indian governments to create lists of communities who were entitled for positive discrimination.

The higher classes, which were the elite of the Indian society, were classified as high castes. The other communities were classified as lower castes or lower classes. The lower classes were listed in three categories. The first category is called Scheduled Castes. This category includes in it communities who were untouchables. In modern India, untouchability exists at a very low extent. The untouchables call themselves Dalit, meaning depressed. Until the late 1980s they were called Harijan, meaning children of God. This title was given to them by Mahatma Gandhi who wanted the society to accept untouchables within them.

The second category is Scheduled Tribes. This category includes in it those communities who did not accept the caste system and preferred to reside deep in the jungles, forests and mountains of India, away from the main population. The Scheduled Tribes are also called Adivasi, meaning aboriginals. The third category is called sometimes Other Backward Classes or Backward Classes. This category includes in it castes who belong to Sudra Varna and also former untouchables who converted from Hinduism to other religions. This category also includes in it nomads and tribes who made a living from criminal acts.

According to the central government policy these three categories are entitled for positive discrimination. Sometimes these three categories are defined together as Backward Classes. 15% of India's population are Scheduled Castes. According to central government policy 15% of the government jobs and 15% of the students admitted to universities must be from Scheduled Castes. For the Scheduled Tribes about 7.5% places are reserved which is their proportion in Indian population. The Other Backwards Classes are about 50% of India's population, but only 27% of government jobs are reserved for them.

Land Reforms in India

One of the most ticklish questions in Indian economy has been the nature and relevance of land reforms. Comprehensive land reforms were among the first priorities of the Government of India immediately after Independence. For this the manifold imbalances of the colonial legacy of two centuries had to be dismantled, and a new beginning made. It was a semi-feudal system that was inherited from British rule. A handful of intermediaries rack-rented a large mass of hapless tenantry. A widespread system of subletting, often several rungs deep, worsened the situation by reducing the holdings to uneconomic proportions.


With the twin objectives of achieving social equity and ensuring economic growth, the land reforms programme was built around three major issues:
1.      Abolition of intermediaries.
2.      Settlement and regulation of tenancy.
3.      Regulation of size of holdings.


The central thesis behind the abolition of intermediaries, underlined by the first as well as the Second Five Year Plan, was that owners themselves should operate and manage farm business, and so the tenant-landlord nexus should be put to an end. The intermediary’s privileges were conceived as having an adverse impact on agricultural productivity as well as denying the tiller of the soil his rightful place in the economy. Tenancy reforms were launched to confirm the rights of occupancy by tenants, regulate rents on leased land and to secure their possession of tenanted land. It was argued, especially in the context of the spread of modern technology, that the tenants lacking a security of tenure and paying excessive rents suffer a relative decline in inputs compared to the owners. To this end the following recommendations were made by the Chief Ministers’ Conference in 1967:
1.      The rate of interest should not be more, preferably less, than 1/4 or 1/5 of the gross produce.
2.      Records of tenancy should be prepared and maintained.
3.      Tenants in cultivating position of land should be given complete security of tenancy by: i) staying all evictions; ii) suspending rights of resumption where such rights had been given to landowners; and iii) regulating voluntary surrenders in such a way landowners do not get an advantage by persuading tenants to surrender their tenancy.


The third major land reform plank was regulating the size of land holdings through ceiling as well as consolidation to correct the extremely skewed distribution of agricultural land. It was designed to (i) to meet land hunger of working cultivators, (ii) to reduce the disparities in agricultural income, ownership, and use of land, and (iii) to increase rural employment in the sector. At the same time, consolidation of holdings was also advocated to group together the numerous tiny and scattered holdings of poor cultivators in order to form bigger tracts, susceptible to more efficient management. Cooperative farming on these would increase productivity and employment through economies of scale. The large, economical units of consolidated land, it was opined, would mitigate the problem of poor yield and enhance productivity through economies of scale and also increase employment.


As the land reforms reach an impasse, a series of considerations have raised serious doubts about their continuing relevance as to whether they are really the best way for achieving growth with general well-being and whether they are in harmony with the ongoing liberalisation of Indian economy. Ultimately, the success or even the initiative for such policy measures would depend on the extent to which our decision-makers believe them to be compatible with the politics of competitive populism.

Sanskritization

The caste system is far from a rigid system in which the position of each component caste is fixed for all time. Movement has always been possible, and especially so in the middle regions of the hierarchy. A low caste was able, in a generation or two, to rise to a higher position in the hierarchy by adopting vegetarianism and teetotalism, and by Sanskritizing its ritual and pantheon. In short, it took over, as far as possible, the customs, rites, and beliefs of the Brahmins, and the adoption of the Brahminic way of life by a low caste seems to have been frequent, though theoretically forbidden. This process has been called -'Sanskritization'.

The development of Hinduism can be interpreted as a constant interaction between the religion of the upper social groups, represented by the Brahmans, and the religion of other groups. From the time of the Vedas (c. 1500 BCE) the indigenous inhabitants of the subcontinent tended to adapt their religious and social life to Brahmanic norms. This development resulted from the desire of lower- class groups to rise on the social ladder by adopting the ways and beliefs of the higher castes. The process, sometimes called "Sanskritization," began in Vedic times, when non-Vedic chieftains accepted the ministrations of Brahmans and thus achieved social status for themselves and their subjects. It was probably the principal method by which Hinduism spread through the subcontinent and into Southeast Asia. Sanskritization still continues in the form of the conversion of tribal groups, and it is reflected by the persistent tendency of low-caste Hindus to try to raise their status by adopting high-caste customs, such as wearing the sacred cord and becoming vegetarians, even though the castes have been officially abolished.

If Sanskritization has been the main means of spreading Hinduism throughout the subcontinent, the converse process, which has no convenient label, has been one of the means whereby Hinduism has changed and developed over the centuries. The Vedic people lived side by side with the indigenous inhabitants of the subcontinent. The phallic emblem of the god Shiva arose from a combination of the phallic aspects of the Vedic god Indra and a non-Vedic icon of early popular fertility cults. Many features of Hindu mythology and several of the lesser gods-such as Ganesha, an elephant-headed god, and Hanuman, the monkey god-were incorporated into Hinduism and assimilated into the appropriate Vedic gods by this means. Similarly, the worship of many goddesses who are now regarded as the consorts of the great male Hindu gods, as well as the worship of individual unmarried goddesses, may have originally incorporated the worship of non-Vedic local goddesses. Unorthodox circles on the fringes of Brahmanic culture (probably in southern India) were one of the important sources of the system of ecstatic devotional religion known as bhakti. Thus, the history of Hinduism can be interpreted as the imposition of orthoprax custom upon wider and wider ranges of people and, complementarily, as the survival of features of non-Vedic religions that gained strength steadily until they were adapted by the Brahmans.

Unity in Diversity

It is often said that there is unity in diversity in India. The people of India are united with a common cultural heritage have a feeling of unity in spite of having external differences. From ancient times it is been seen that India is divided into various castes, creed , religions, regions but then too they are united as one whole nation. Nothing in the past have made them broken into pieces. It is an whole of a nation with a huge population , and will remain united in whatever condition they may put to.

India is a land of diverse physical features. There are snow capped mountains, hilly terrains, plains, plateaus, and coastal areas. There are deserts and places with extreme and scanty rainfall. There are regions with extreme and moderate climate.

People of India follow different religions and castes. They follow different customs, traditions and speak different languages. They also differ in dress and food.inspite of so many differences; people have a feeling of oneness .they are bound by common cultural heritage and they share basic human values. When Indians go abroad, they call themselves Indians and they are known as Indians.

Indian culture is dynamic and tolerant.indian culture is more varied and richer. Though the foreign cultures retained their basic character, they became a part of the Indian culture with the passage of time. The diversity of the Indians contributes to the variety and richness of Indian culture and strengthens national unity.

But intolerance and narrow mindedness may weaken national unity. We should therefore create conditions in which people should become conscious of the similarities which make them Indians rather than the dissimilarities which distinguish them from others. People must be encouraged to feel proud of India’s cultural heritage, of being called Indians while retaining their distinct features. India is a live example to the world to show them that they have Unity In Diversity. This country not only remains together in an emergency but also they remain together in natural calamities such as famines, floods and earthquakes. This country has become quite inspirational for the countries who have heavily been divided racially.