Educational Galaxy

Fire-Hymn — EG's own notes, in simple English

Book: Rainbow Bhag-2 (Purani pustak — 2025 se pehle wali) (BSEB, Class 12)  |  Poetry 8  |  Type: Poem  |  Author: Keki N. Daruwalla

This page carries Educational Galaxy's own original notes — a theme-level summary in simple English, not a copy of the textbook. No official textbook PDF is given here.

Diagram (labels are printed on the image): A temple flame at dusk — fire as sacred light. (PIL-drawn diagram: the Flux service was unavailable, so this diagram was drawn directly.)

Flames at a riverside ghat — fire as destroyer.

What the chapter is about

In this poem, Keki Daruwalla writes about fire — the sacred fire of the Parsis, and also the fire that burns the dead. The speaker watches a funeral fire and thinks about how fire both purifies and destroys.

The poem is set near a burning ghat, where the speaker sees the flames and remembers his own people and their traditions. Fire, for the Parsis, is holy; but here it also burns human bodies, and that contrast troubles the speaker.

The lesson is that fire is double-faced: it gives light and purity, but it also consumes. Daruwalla uses fire to think about death, tradition and the sacred.

The poem's fire does two jobs at once: it is the Parsi's sacred flame, kept pure and tended with prayer, and it is the funeral fire that eats the body. Daruwalla holds both fires in one word, and the speaker's trouble comes from that holding — how can one element be both holy and hungry?

Notice the speaker's position. He is not a distant observer of a ritual; he is a Parsi watching his own tradition meet death, and the fire that should purify now consumes. In exams, name that personal stake: the poem is not about fire in general, but about a believer troubled by his own sacred symbol.

What you should learn

Understand Daruwalla's fire — sacred and destructive at once, light and death together.

Chart / Table

Point	Detail
Poet	Keki N. Daruwalla
Subject	Fire
Sacred side	Parsi holy fire, purity, light
Destructive side	Funeral fire consuming bodies
Message	Fire is double-faced

Practice set — try it yourself

1. Why is fire sacred for the Parsis?
   Hint: Think about holy fire and purity.
2. Where is the poem set?
   Hint: Think about a burning ghat.
3. How does fire both purify and destroy?
   Hint: Think about light versus consuming bodies.
4. Why is the speaker troubled?
   Hint: Think about the holy and the terrible together.
5. Name two double-faced things in life.
   Hint: Think about water or knowledge, helpful and harmful.

Core Questions with Answers

1. What is this poem about?
   Fire — the sacred fire of the Parsis, and the fire that burns the dead.
2. Where is it set?
   Near a burning ghat, where the speaker watches a funeral fire.
3. How is fire double-faced?
   It gives light and purity, but it also consumes and destroys.
4. Why is the speaker troubled?
   Because the same fire that is holy also burns human bodies.
5. What is the main message?
   Fire is double-faced: sacred and destructive at once, light and death together.

Extension Questions with Answers

1. Why is fire sacred for the Parsis?
   Because in their faith fire is a pure symbol of God, kept burning in temples and tended with care. It stands for light, truth and purity.
2. How does the funeral fire change the meaning of fire?
   It takes the same holy element and makes it destroy a human body. The fire that gives light now gives ash, so purity and destruction share one flame.
3. Why is the speaker troubled rather than comforted?
   Because his faith tells him fire purifies, but his eyes see fire consume someone he knows. Belief and sight disagree, and that disagreement is the poem's wound.
4. What does the burning ghat setting add?
   It puts the sacred and the destructive side by side in one place: temple flame and funeral flame, prayer and ash, in the same evening air.
5. Apply the poem's double face to any powerful thing.
   Electricity lights homes and kills; water gives life and drowns; words heal and wound. Daruwalla's fire teaches that power is rarely single-faced.

Board Exam Questions (board-pattern practice)

These are Educational Galaxy's own board-pattern practice questions, written in the style of board questions. They are not claimed to be real past-year questions.

1. Explain the double face of fire in this poem. Answer: Fire is holy for Parsis — light and purity — yet at the burning ghat it consumes dead bodies; the same flame is sacred and terrible.
2. Why does the setting matter? Answer: The burning ghat forces the contrast into view — the speaker cannot think of holy fire without seeing funeral fire.
3. What does fire symbolise here? Answer: Both life and death — purity and destruction, the sacred and the fearful, held in one flame.
4. How does tradition meet death in the poem? Answer: Parsi reverence for fire meets the universal fact of burning bodies; tradition and mortality stand face to face.
5. What lesson does this poem give? Answer: That holy things can also be terrible, and that death must be faced, not hidden.

How to use this page: First read the summary, say the key terms in your own words, then try the practice set without looking. Finally check yourself with the questions and answers. Get your answers checked by your teacher or parents.