8. Fire hymn( अग्नि स्तुति) Keki N. Daruwalla

The poem Fire-Hymn is written by Keki. N. Daruwala. 

In the poem the poet describes the scene of a burning Ghat. The poet explains about a ghat where dead bodies were burnt. The ghat was surrounded all around with fire and was burning because it was busy engulfing the dead bodies. The passer-by and passengers were frightened because of the wandering ghost lights erupting from the ghat. Moonlight ran fast among the dead bodies. In the morning the poet went to the ghat along with his father. The ghat was situated near the bank of a river. The poet witnessed embers which were the pieces of wood and coal which lost their redness of the fire and only grey ashes were left. Half cooked limbs suggested that half of the bodies were burnt and half were still left. 

In the second stanza of the poem the poet witnessed the immoral behaviour of the fire because dead bodies were not completely burnt. It was an immoral behaviour of the fire. The poet’s father said to him that he could witness half burnt fingers and how the bone remains that had not been burnt were left at the ghat. The poet then said that it seemed sometimes that fire forgot that it was dead. The poet disclosed his religion that he was a Zorastrian, which was a Parsi religion, who believed that there was a continuing struggle in the world between the forces of light and dark and in his religion fire was worshiped so his child fingers clenched with pain. The poet could not see the sins of fire because he was a child and he swore to save fire from the sin of forgetting its dead. 

In the third stanza of the poem the poet described an incident of his life. Twenty years later, the poet was no longer a child but one whose eldest child died and he consigned his first born to fire. As the poet mentioned above about his religion, dead ones were not burnt in fire but they were kept on the Tower of Silence. The Tower of Silence is the structure where Parsis dispose of the dead bodies and the nearest Tower of Silence was a thousand miles away. So he committed a sin against his religion and submitted his child to fire. The fire- hymn, which was a religious song or poem to praise God, said to the poet that he had been forgiven. The poet was broken yet he was unwilling to obey the rules and once again, he swore to save the fire from committing the sin of forgiving.