Sharjeel Ilyas
ERP: 11030
Date: 22-10-2015
Section: 2

“THE DACCA GAUZES”
Agha Shahid Ali

This poem by Agha Shahid Ali is about the Dacca Gauze, a cloth so fine and thin that he describes it as woven air. It is a story of the poet’s understandings of the ‘dead art’ of weaving and how his grandmother grieves over the loss of the beautiful fabric.

The poet begins with telling us how thin the material was. He calls it “woven air, running water, evening dew.” The art of weaving such cloth was no more, a “dead art now, dead over a hundred years.” He remembers a sari that his grandmother once wore. He recalls how all of it could be pulled through a ring and when it tore, it was cut into small handkerchiefs. The poet is distressed about the historical fact that the British amputated the hands of Bengali weavers and shipped the fabric to England. Since then, no one has been able to produce a cloth parallel in quality to the Dacca gauzes.

The other perception in the poem is that of the grandmother. She is least concerned about the sad history of Bengal and how ‘the looms of Bengal were silenced.’ Her only sorrow is that the incredible Dacca gauzes do not exist anymore. She says, “No one now knows what it was to wear or touch that cloth.” Deeply occupied in her memories, the grandmother often tries to pull the non-existent muslin out of the air.

‘The Dacca Gauzes’ is a ride to the past of the poet’s grandmother and her intense fondness for the brilliant cloth.