Keki Daruwalla’s poem ‘Tiger’ is a parody of Blake’s poem ‘The Tyger’. Blake pictures the tiger as a brute beauty, a majestic creation of God, indicative of God’s power. But Daruwalla’s tiger is a pitiable creature. Daruwalla sets the tone for what he wants to say right at the beginning by stating that the tiger is not burning bright. This is a complete contrast to the opening lines of Blake’s poem, ‘Tyger, Tyger burning bright, In the forest of the night/ Daruwalla says with irony that tiger is not burning bright in shadow or sun or in the forest of the night or the wilderness of the day.
The poet draws our attention to the dwindling number of tigers in two ways: he says that the tiger family is thinking two by two and one by one. He also refers to the father tiger Sheru missing. He makes an emotional appeal to the readers, right at the beginning, about the need to understand the tragic plight of the tiger. The tigers are hunted by poachers for their bones which are used in Chinese medicine, believed to revitalize sickly men, and the tiger skin is used for decorative purposes.
The bones are powdered and shipped out in plastic and the skin is hung on the wall as an ornamental piece. The pitiable condition is metaphorically described by the poet with references to the gecko which crawls on the skin in search of insects. The poet feels sad for the tiger which has lost its grandeur.
The tiger’s roar in the past made the jungle tremble, birds to take flight in fear and monkeys to scream in terror. But in the present, geckoes nibble at the ears of the dead tiger skin! God had created the tiger as a beautiful beast with gold and black stripes, representing dawn and night. But the gold no longer shines and the King of the forest who feasted on boars is hunted down by humans and is near extinction. Thus, Daruwalla points out the urgency of the need to protect the tiger, India’s national animal, which is God’s marvelous creation.
