Michael Drayton V/S Amitabh Bhattacharya

Hello friends,

Today I was reading a poem which I studied during my graduation “Since There’s No Help” by Michael Drayton. While reading this poem, I heard a song playing in my neighbourhood. The song was “Breakup song” from the latest Bollywood movie “Ae Dil hai Mushkil”. I thought to compare both the writers and their work.

Let’s first know something about both the writers

Both the works are written in an different era, for different generation and by different generation poets.

Let’s first see the poem and song and its analysis:-

Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part - Michael Drayton

Since there's no help, come let us kiss and part.

Nay, I have done, you get no more of me;

And I am glad, yea glad with all my heart,

That thus so cleanly I myself can free.

Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,

And when we meet at any time again,

Be it not seen in either of our brows

That we one jot of former love retain.

Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,

When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies;

When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,

And Innocence is closing up his eyes-

Now, if thou wouldst, when all have given him over,

From death to life thou might'st him yet recover!

The goodbye kiss is always a painful event, but in some ways, it is a relief.  Drayton captures both those feelings in this sonnet.

In the first eight lines, Drayton appears to be quite relieved to be windup this relationship.  Basically, he says, "Since there's nothing we can do to stop this breakup, let's kiss, make an end of it. We will not see one another.  I'm happy to be free.  We can shake hands, and when we meet again, it'll be like we have no love left for one another. There will be no hint of it at all."  That sounds great, honestly.  But does it ever really happen that way?

"I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart that thus so cleanly I myself can free."

From a modern point of view, we can say that it’s a happy moment to be free from the web of relations. But it seems that Drayton is trying hard to make himself understand that he is happy about the breakup.

 "Be it not seen in either of our brows that we one jot of former love retain."

Is it really possible to pretend that we don’t know a person with whom we were in relationship once upon a time.

The last six lines are at odds with the first eight.

The first eight are the mind's explanation of the breakup. 

So the poet here pretends to be but he is not happy as such. It is true that it is not easy to break up any relation and move on. Especially when you love someone. But from modern time if we see then it is not suitable.

The contemporary time allow one to be free from the conspicuous cobweb of relations.

Here is an audio clip of this song also.

Here in this song we see the reality of the present time. It is age of quick patch-up and quick break-up. In the people used to cry a lot when any relationship breaks, but now when someone is breaking up people to go to parlour of a hair-wash. In the present time we have many options to let our frustration fly away. We can block people and delete their number.

The status on the social media tells about our relations are we single or available or committed. Its so easy we can change our relation status whenever we like.

Of course this song reflects the present time of society and it seems very funny but that is the reality.

We can also go deep into it and can see that the meaning of love is somewhere lost in this present time. Somewhere there is a need to understand love and life.

We can also see a theme of Necessity V/S Absurdity here. Michael Drayton highlights the necessity of relation and love, while Amitabh Bhattacharya highlights the absurdity of relation and love.

Both the poem and the song reflect the reality of their time. The message given in the both the works are realistic. It is always hard to break any relation and pretend that everything is okay. But to keep a hopeless hope that everything will be fine is also sometimes stupid. We have to move on and focus on something else, rather than crying for the rotten relation.

 “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.”     ― John F. Kennedy

The best thing to do is to “Go with the flow”. Accept whatever comes with the flow.

Hope you enjoyed reading!!!!

Please give your observations and suggestions.