Casabianca by Ayyappa Panicker

QUICK REVISION:
Casabianca - Ayyappa Panicker

Themes: 
challenging established ideas because impractical
questioning blind obedience
rational thinking and logic
filial piety is overrated
self-glorification (by father)
outdated ideals, morals, standards (esp. those of respect toward elders)
necessity for scientific temper

* through the poem, our perceptions about the father and the son evolve and become more tangible and less open to interpretation
* twist in storyline, attitude
* responsibility toward future generations to encourage wiser ideals
* press in the poem - criticized for sensationalizing and being purveyors of gossip - emphasis on 'human element' (p.s. this is a euphemism) rather than cold hard facts

Literary devices:
satire
irony
subversion 
intertextuality

• Ayyappa Panicker is challenging a celebrated poem which symbolizes filial piety and obedience
• He does this using inter-textuality - referring to one text while writing another (here, Felicia Hemans' Casabianca and also the school textbook)
• Intention of inter-textuality is to challenge an established idea
• irony, satire (occasionally Horatian) -> subversion - to unsettle or undermine a dominant idea
• "new journalists' code" - wants journalists to be subjective, moralistic, to add the emotional aspect

try to make sense of this: http://cuenglias.blogspot.in/2014/11/casabianca-by-ayyappa-paniker.html

11 NOV 2014

The boy stood on the burning deck
  Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
  Shone round him o'er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
  As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
  A proud, though child-like form.

The flames rolled on–he would not go
  Without his Father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
  His voice no longer heard.

He called aloud–'say, Father, say
  If yet my task is done?'
He knew not that the chieftain lay
  Unconscious of his son.

'Speak, father!' once again he cried,
  'If I may yet be gone!'
And but the booming shots replied,
  And fast the flames rolled on.

Upon his brow he felt their breath,
  And in his waving hair,
And looked from that lone post of death
  In still yet brave despair.

And shouted but once more aloud,
  'My father! must I stay?'
While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud,
  The wreathing fires made way.

They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
  They caught the flag on high,
And streamed above the gallant child,
  Like banners in the sky.

There came a burst of thunder sound–
   The boy–oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds that far around
  With fragments strewed the sea!–

With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
  That well had borne their part–
But the noblest thing which perished there
  Was that young faithful heart.

This is the original poem by Felicia Hemans (1793-1835)

What Ayyappa Panicker wrote was:

Hearing that Casabianca was dead,
the devil of a father washed his eyes with tears
of joy, and brought the brood of press reporters,
properly entertained, to take a look at the ashes
of his son, as he had read his school text book.
He heaped up the white ashes on the ship's deck:
empty tears in his eyes, he issued the press note:

'These days you won't find in all the three worlds
a son like mine - who obeys his father
out of filial love - "Wait on the deck,
till I come back" - And then when the ship
caught fire and the decks burned and turned
into ashes, and all the others leaped and ran,
and this sea of grief boiled, he stuck to my words...
Oh, why should I turn this example into mere poetry?
You must publish these details in the papers
And try to build up a new journalists' code!'

'Do you have by any chance a picture of your son?
I mean, one taken before he was turned into these ashes?'

'Oh no, comrades, my son was that type;
he'd never have gone to where pictures are taken.
He did look more or less like me; so, sirs,
if you please, you can take a picture of mine.'

'I'm here, very much here, oh Papa!'
The honey-sweet voice rang from the road. 'This
son of yours had heard this story long ago; so, when
I saw the fire coming, I reached the shore.
I though I could explain it when papa came.
The old tale continues to be taught at school.
We must change the tale, and save the texts from worms.
Let not people say, the son blindly obeyed his father
and had no sense of his own; or, else, next time,
when the ship catches fire again, papa dear,
you should stand on the deck and then
will know that fire is no joke.Then will you
celebrate my wisdom; and when my tale
is taught at school they should rewrite it thus:
the father hugged his son, who escaped
from the burning deck, and said:
"The world applauds your presence of mind;
disobedience in the literal sense - won't it give
taste and flavor even to the reports in the press?"

For the third time did the father now
shed his tears - this time for the son alive.