Shreya Jain, SME AT Edumarz
The first part of the poem talks about the works performed by the wind. The poet asks the wind to blow gently, requesting it to not cause any type of destruction. Like to not break the shutters of the windows, not to scatter the papers, and also not to throw down the books from the shelf. While on the other hand, the wind does the opposite, throwing off the book on the floor and tearing down the pages. The poet mentions that the wind likes to tease the weaklings by bringing down their frail houses, weak hearts, crumbling lives, crumbling bodies. It crushes everything weakly. So, the poet through these lines meant whenever a weak person faces any problems in life he breaks down and falls.
In the next lines, the poet is calling wind as Wind God and saying that he sifts all the people, and the weak people fall down and get crushed. So, here is a comparison that is done between people and wheat. Just like the process of winnowing, we separate the grain from the chaff, the wind god separates the strong people from the weak ones. When there’s a strong wind, all the weak things fall, getting crushed. The poet advises us to get strong then only we would be able to save ourselves from the wind. He also wants us to make friends with the wind i.e. problems of our lives.
He says problems will come unannounced, so we should be well prepared. We should build stronger houses, closing the doors firmly so as the wind cannot get inside. He also told us to make our bodies stronger and hearts firm so as to face these challenges. Once we make ourselves stronger all the challenges will turn like friends and will seem less troublesome. The ending lines of the poem talk about how the wind extinguishes weak fires but the strong ones grow further. If we are weak it will overpower us, and it will help us grow if we are strong. Thus, the poem conveys the thought that nobody cares about the weak. Even the wind is on the strong people’s side. We should make ourselves stronger so as to become successful in life. Later on, we would praise the obstacles and challenges we faced as they helped us to grow and become the best versions of ourselves.