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Time and Time Again – A.K. Ramanujan

🎓 Class 12 English CBSE Theory Ch 12 — Poetry: Time and Time Again ⏱ ~35 min
🌐 Language: [gtranslate]

This CBSE English Passage Assessment will be based on: Time and Time Again – A.K. Ramanujan

Assessment Format:
• 2 Short Answer Questions (2 marks each) = 4 marks
• 2 Fill in the Blanks Questions (1 mark each) = 2 marks
• 2 Short Answer Questions (1 mark each) = 2 marks
• 2 Multiple Choice Questions (1 mark each) = 2 marks
Total: 8 Questions, 10 Marks

This CBSE English Grammar Assessment will be based on: Time and Time Again – A.K. Ramanujan

Assessment Format:
• 10 Randomized Grammar Questions (1 mark each)
• Question Types: Fill in the Blanks, MCQs, Error Identification, Reported Speech, Sentence Completion
Total: 10 Questions, 10 Marks

This English Vocabulary assessment will be based on: Time and Time Again – A.K. Ramanujan
Targeting Vocabulary & Usage with Intermediate difficulty.

Before You Read — Clocks, Cities, and Communal Life

Think about it: Have you ever been in a town or city where different communities — Hindus, Muslims, Christians — live side by side but follow their own clocks, calendars, and customs? What does this tell us about how we share (or fail to share) public time and space?
Predict: The title is "Time and Time Again." What do you expect this poem to be about — repetition of events, clocks, or something else entirely? Does the title suggest a lament, a celebration, or a warning?
Vocabulary warm-up: What does perennial mean? What is an alloy? What kind of city might you call well-managed — and what irony might the poet intend with that phrase?

This poem uses the clocktowers of a plural Indian city as a metaphor for communal coexistence — imperfect, slightly off-beat, yet enduring. The towers represent different religious and cultural communities. The word perennial means "lasting for a very long time" (the feuds between communities are ancient and recurring). An alloy is a mixture of metals — here, it explains why each bell sounds slightly different. The phrase "well-managed city" is quietly ironic: a city can be organised in every official sense yet still harbour deep communal fault lines.

AKR
A.K. Ramanujan
1929 – 1993
Indian English Poetry Linguistics Tamil Translation Anthropology Diasporic Voice

Attipat Krishnaswami Ramanujan was one of India's finest English-language poets and a pioneering translator of classical Tamil and Kannada poetry into modern English. At the time of his death he was Professor of Linguistics at the University of Chicago and was regarded as the world's foremost scholar of South Indian languages and culture. His interests in anthropology and folklore shaped a poetic voice of unusual compression and cross-cultural awareness. Collections such as The Striders and Relations brought him international recognition for poems that think in two languages at once. "Time and Time Again" is a compact, highly crafted piece that distils decades of observation about Indian urban life and communal discord.

The Poem

Time and Time Again

— A.K. Ramanujan

STANZA I
Or listen to the clocktowers of any old well-managed city beating their gongs round the clock, each slightly off the others' time, deeper or lighter in its bronze, beating out a different sequence each half-hour, out of the accidents of alloy, a maker's shaking hand in Switzerland, or the mutual distances commemorating a donor's whim, the perennial feuds and seasonal alliance of Hindu, Christian, and Muslim— cut off sometimes by a change of wind, a change of mind, or a siren between the pieces of a backstreet quarrel.
STANZA II
One day you look up and see one of them eyeless, silent, a zigzag sky showing through the knocked-out clockwork, after a riot, a peace-march time bomb, or a precise act Of nature in a night of lightnings.

Reading the Poem — Stanza by Stanza

Stanza I (Lines 1–14) — The Orchestra of Imperfect Time
The poem opens mid-sentence with "Or listen…" — a typical Ramanujan device that plunges us into the middle of a longer, ongoing meditation. The clocktowers of "any old well-managed city" beat their gongs slightly off each other's time. The poet offers three explanations for this temporal imprecision: the accidents of alloy (the specific mixture of metals in the bronze bell affects its tone and tempo), a maker's shaking hand in Switzerland (the human fallibility of the craftsman far away), and mutual distances — the actual physical spacing of towers across an urban landscape. But these engineering reasons are quickly overshadowed by a social one: the perennial feuds and seasonal alliance / of Hindu, Christian, and Muslim. The towers become symbols of communities — each slightly off the others' rhythm, each with its own timbre, yet coexisting in the same city. The word "perennial" (lasting forever) contrasted with "seasonal" (temporary, changing) captures perfectly the rhythm of communal life in India: deep-rooted tensions punctuated by moments of cooperation. The final lines of this stanza introduce instability: this fragile coexistence is "cut off sometimes by a change of wind, / a change of mind, or a siren / between the pieces of a backstreet quarrel." The list moves from natural (wind) to human (mind) to civic emergency (siren) — violence can erupt from causes as random as the weather.

Metaphor The clocktowers are an extended metaphor for religious/cultural communities.
Allegory The city of clocks is an allegory for plural India — imperfect but functional.
Alliteration "deeper or lighter" — soft sonic echoing mirrors the bells' quality.
Irony "well-managed city" — ironic since a well-managed city still harbours communal feuds.
Stanza II (Lines 15–19) — Sudden Silence
The shift from stanza I to stanza II is abrupt and devastating. The poet moves from the busy imprecision of many clocks to the sudden silence of one that has been destroyed. The phrase "One day you look up" is casual, even domestic — as if this is an ordinary morning. But what you see is a tower gone "eyeless, silent" — a word that combines blindness (no clock face) with death (the hollow socket of a skull). The zigzag sky showing / through the knocked-out clockwork is a powerful image: the broken gears frame a jagged, irregular opening into the sky, suggesting chaos where there was once regulated time. Three causes are listed with deliberate equivalence: a riot, a peace-march time bomb (a weapon placed even within an act of nonviolence — perhaps the poem's darkest irony), or a precise act of nature in a night of lightnings. The word "precise" applied to lightning — usually thought of as random — is the poem's most enigmatic moment. Nature, unlike human violence, achieves its destruction with a terrible accuracy.

Imagery "eyeless, silent, a zigzag sky" — visual image of destruction.
Paradox "peace-march time bomb" — peace and destruction occupy the same act.
Personification The clocktower is rendered as a living being (eyeless, silent).

Literary Devices — Close Analysis

"the perennial feuds and seasonal alliance / of Hindu, Christian, and Muslim"
Irony + Symbolism — The contrast between "perennial" (eternal, never-ending) and "seasonal" (temporary) reveals the structural inequality of communal life: hatred endures; alliances are only convenient.
"a maker's shaking hand / in Switzerland"
Metaphor — The craftsman's human imprecision (hands that shake) is the literal cause of the clock's inaccuracy. Metaphorically, it reminds us that all human systems — including civic and religious ones — are built by fallible hands. Switzerland (a watchmaking country) adds a touch of irony: even the world's most precise clockmakers cannot guarantee harmony.
"eyeless, silent, a zigzag sky showing / through the knocked-out clockwork"
Imagery + Personification — The tower's destroyed face becomes a human face: "eyeless" suggests blindness or death. The "zigzag sky" glimpsed through the broken mechanism creates an image of order violently disrupted.
"a peace-march time bomb"
Paradox — Perhaps the poem's sharpest line. The juxtaposition of "peace-march" and "time bomb" in a single phrase encapsulates the tragic contradiction of Indian political life: violence planted inside nonviolent protest. It also suggests that the ticking of communal tension is built into the act of keeping peace.
"a precise act / Of nature in a night of lightnings"
Irony — Lightning is typically associated with randomness, yet the poet calls it "precise." This suggests that human violence is, paradoxically, more random and purposeless than even a lightning strike. Nature's destruction at least obeys physical laws; human communal violence does not.
"Or listen to the clocktowers / of any old well-managed city"
Irony — The poem's opening "Or" signals we are mid-thought; the "well-managed" city is immediately undercut by evidence of communal discord. Official management and lived conflict are two entirely different realities.

Vocabulary Builder

Click any highlighted word in the poem for a full definition. Key words below:

perennialadj.
Lasting or existing for a very long time; perpetually recurring.
"The perennial feuds… of Hindu, Christian, and Muslim."
alloynoun
A mixture of two or more metals fused together, altering the properties of each.
Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin.
commemoratingverb
Marking or remembering an event or person through a ceremony or monument.
The tower was built commemorating a donor's whim.
eyelessadj.
Without eyes; here, a clock face destroyed — the tower can no longer "see" the time.
"One day you look up and see one of them eyeless, silent."
clockworknoun
The mechanical gear and wheel system inside a clock that drives its movement.
"A zigzag sky showing through the knocked-out clockwork."
seasonaladj.
Occurring only at certain times of the year; temporary or cyclical.
Seasonal alliance — cooperation only when convenient or necessary.

Theme Web

Central Themes — Click to Explore

Communal Discord Plural India & Coexistence Imperfection & Human Error Violence & Sudden Loss Time as Social Metaphor
Plural India & Coexistence: The clocktowers of Hindu, Christian, and Muslim communities share the same city but beat at slightly different rhythms. This is Ramanujan's vision of Indian pluralism — not harmonious unity but an imperfect, living coexistence of communities that are never quite in sync. The poem does not idealise or condemn this plurality; it simply observes it.
Imperfection & Human Error: Three causes explain why the clocks are never perfectly synchronised: the accidents of alloy, a maker's shaking hand, and mutual distances. All three emphasise human fallibility. This extends metaphorically: human institutions, communities, and governments are all imperfect systems built by imperfect hands.
Violence & Sudden Loss: The second stanza's devastating turn — one tower suddenly "eyeless, silent" — captures how communal violence can erase in a moment what has existed for generations. The three causes (riot, time bomb, lightning) are deliberately placed on the same level, suggesting that human violence and natural disaster are, in their consequences, equally total.
Time as Social Metaphor: Clocktowers are monuments to civic time — shared, public, communal. By using them as his central metaphor, Ramanujan explores what it means for a community to share (or fail to share) time. When a tower is destroyed, it is not just a building that is lost — it is a community's claim on public time and space.

Comprehension-Based Questions (CBSE Format)

Extract 1 — Read and Answer

…beating their gongs round the clock, each slightly
off the others' time, deeper or lighter
in its bronze, beating out a different
sequence each half-hour, out of the accidents
of alloy, a maker's shaking hand
in Switzerland, or the mutual distances
commemorating a donor's whim,
the perennial feuds and seasonal alliance
of Hindu, Christian, and Muslim—
  1. What are the three reasons the poet offers for the clocks being slightly off each other's time? L2 Understand
    The poet identifies three reasons: (i) the accidents of alloy — the specific metallic composition of each bell, which affects its tone and timing; (ii) a maker's shaking hand in Switzerland — the human imprecision of the craftsman who built each mechanism; and (iii) the mutual distances — the physical spacing of the towers across the city. Together these reasons move from the material to the human, preparing the reader for the deeper social cause revealed in the next lines.
  2. What is the implicit comparison the poet is making in these lines? What does the "well-managed city" actually represent? L4 Analyse
    The clocktowers represent the different religious and cultural communities — Hindu, Christian, and Muslim — who share the same city but are never perfectly in harmony. The "well-managed city" is ironic: despite outward civic order, deep communal feuds persist. The implicit comparison is between the imprecision of mechanical timekeeping and the impossibility of perfect social synchrony. The city is "well-managed" in administrative terms but cannot manage the deeper rhythms of communal life.
  3. Identify and explain the significance of the contrast between "perennial feuds" and "seasonal alliance." L4 Analyse
    "Perennial" means lasting forever, while "seasonal" means temporary or periodic. The contrast exposes the asymmetry of communal relations in India: the feuds (hostilities) between communities are perennial — ancient, deep-rooted, recurring endlessly — while the alliances (moments of cooperation) are only seasonal — formed out of convenience, pragmatism, or shared threat, and therefore temporary. The implication is darkly ironic: togetherness is fleeting; conflict is permanent.
  4. "Or listen to the clocktowers / of any old well-managed city" — what is the effect of beginning the poem with "Or"? What does this suggest about the poem's structure and the poet's stance? L5 Evaluate
    The opening word "Or" is deliberately disorienting — it suggests we are entering the middle of a thought, or that this example (the clocktowers) is one of many possible illustrations of a larger point. This mid-thought entry gives the poem an air of quiet, weary familiarity: the poet does not need to explain the context because it is universally known. It also establishes the poet's stance as one of wistful lament — neither condemning (he does not rage at the situation) nor accepting (he calls it a problem) — he is a thoughtful, slightly exhausted observer of a recurring predicament.

Extract 2 — Read and Answer

One day you look up and see one of them
eyeless, silent, a zigzag sky showing
through the knocked-out clockwork, after a riot,
a peace-march time bomb, or a precise act
Of nature in a night of lightnings.
  1. What has happened to the clocktower in the second stanza? What three events might have caused it? L2 Understand
    The clocktower has been destroyed — its mechanism has been "knocked out," leaving a hollow, "eyeless" shell. Three possible causes are mentioned: (i) a riot (communal violence), (ii) a peace-march time bomb (a bomb planted during a peaceful protest), and (iii) a precise act of nature in a night of lightnings (a lightning strike). The three are listed with deliberate equivalence, suggesting that from the perspective of loss, the cause matters less than the result.
  2. Explain the paradox in "a peace-march time bomb." What does it reveal about the poem's view of communal India? L4 Analyse
    "Peace-march time bomb" is a powerful paradox because it places two directly contradictory realities in the same phrase: a march for peace containing an instrument of destruction. It suggests that in a society riven by communal tension, even the act of advocating for peace can become a target — or a vehicle — for violence. The phrase reflects the poem's overall view of communal India: that violence is structurally embedded in the very spaces and acts intended to resist it. Good intentions do not guarantee a safe outcome.
  3. Why does the poet describe the act of lightning as "precise"? What is the ironic effect? L4 Analyse
    Lightning is typically associated with randomness — it strikes without warning, and no human can predict or direct it. By calling it "precise," the poet inverts expectations. The irony is that nature's random destruction has a kind of clean finality, while human communal violence is supposedly purposeful but in reality more chaotic and senseless. Nature destroys with what seems like surgical accuracy; human beings destroy with irrational, unpredictable hatred. The word "precise" is quietly devastating in this context.
  4. Which of the following best describes the poet's attitude towards communal disharmony in this poem — critical condemnation, helpless acceptance, or wistful lament? Support your answer with evidence from the text. L5 Evaluate
    The poem most closely reflects wistful lament. The poet does not rage against communal disharmony in the manner of direct condemnation; nor does he accept it passively as simply the way things are. Instead, his tone is that of a thoughtful, sorrowing witness who has observed this cycle of imperfect coexistence and sudden violence for a lifetime. The casual "One day you look up" is the language of resigned familiarity — this is not a surprise; it is something that happens, again and again. The title "Time and Time Again" reinforces this: the poem is about the tragic repetition of communal violence across Indian history. The wistfulness lies in the contrast between the beauty of imperfect coexistence (all those different bells ringing together) and the silence left when one is destroyed.

Responding to the Poem — Textbook Questions

Short and Long Answer Questions

1. What did you think the poem was about when you read the first few lines? How does your understanding evolve as you read further?
In the first few lines, a reader might think the poem is purely about clocktowers — a meditation on timekeeping, urban soundscapes, or perhaps a celebration of civic architecture. The phrase "any old well-managed city" suggests a familiar setting. However, as the poem continues, the mention of "perennial feuds and seasonal alliance / of Hindu, Christian, and Muslim" reveals the true subject: the poem is about communal coexistence and discord in India, with the clocktowers serving as a metaphor for communities. The shift from physical (clocks) to social (communities) is the poem's central intellectual movement.
2. From which line does the import of the title "Time and Time Again" strike the reader?
The full import of the title strikes the reader in the final stanza, specifically in the phrase "One day you look up and see one of them / eyeless, silent." The casual "One day" signals that this is not a unique event — it is something that happens time and time again in Indian communal history. The destruction of a tower (representing a community, a place of worship, a public clock) is a recurring tragedy, not a singular one. The title retrospectively transforms the entire poem: the clocks' imperfect beating "time and time again" is also the beating of communal violence repeating itself through history.
3. What makes for the differences between the timekeeping of the various clocks? What is the implicit comparison?
The differences in timekeeping arise from: (i) the accidents of alloy — different metallic compositions affect each bell's tone and tempo; (ii) the maker's shaking hand in Switzerland — human imprecision in manufacture; and (iii) mutual distances — the physical spacing of towers across the city. The implicit comparison is between the mechanical imperfection of clocks and the cultural/spiritual imperfection of communal coexistence. Just as no two clocks can be perfectly synchronised due to material and human differences, no two communities can be perfectly harmonised due to historical, religious, and social differences. The poem suggests this imperfect coexistence is natural — even beautiful in its dissonance — until violence suddenly silences one voice.
4. Why is the act of nature described as 'precise'?
Lightning is typically thought of as chaotic and indiscriminate, yet Ramanujan calls it "precise" because, unlike human communal violence, it follows the laws of nature exactly. There is a dark irony: nature destroys with a kind of accidental precision that human beings — who supposedly have intention and rationality — fail to achieve when they destroy each other. The "precise" act of lightning is also a more honest cause of ruin than a riot: it carries no hatred, no ideology, no grudge. By equating a natural disaster with communal violence, the poet does not excuse the latter but rather highlights how ordinary, how recurrent, and how inevitable such destruction has come to seem.
5. Is the poet's attitude a representation of how the average Indian feels both towards human violence and nature's fury?
To a significant extent, yes. Ramanujan's tone of wistful lament — neither outraged condemnation nor passive acceptance — reflects the response of many Indians who have lived with communal violence as a painful, recurring reality. The "One day you look up" is not a cry of shock; it is the tired recognition of someone who has seen this before. By listing a riot, a peace-march time bomb, and lightning in the same breath — treating all three as possible causes of the same destruction — the poet captures the average Indian's sense that violence, in all its forms, is part of the landscape of life. This resignation is itself a commentary on how normalised communal destruction has become.

Structure & Form

"after a riot, / a peace-march time bomb, or a precise act / Of nature"
FeatureObservationEffect
Two-stanza structure 14 lines (coexistence) + 5 lines (destruction) The long first stanza creates a rhythm of imperfect normalcy; the short second stanza delivers the poem's shock with sudden compression.
Free verse No regular rhyme or metre Mirrors the irregular, imperfect timing of the clocks themselves. The poem's form enacts its subject.
Opening "Or" Mid-thought entry Creates familiarity and weary recognition — as if this argument (or this tragedy) has been made many times before.
Enjambment Lines run into each other throughout Stanza I Mimics the ongoing, unceasing beating of the clocks — time continuing despite everything.
List of three causes Deliberate equivalence — human violence and natural disaster placed on the same moral plane, suggesting both are part of the same cycle of recurring loss.

Language Study — The Poem's Compressed Style

Ramanujan's Poetic Compression

Ramanujan's style is notable for its economy — he packs multiple meanings into very few words. The poem is only 19 lines long, yet it addresses centuries of Indian history. Notice the following techniques:

The Explanatory Series:

In Stanza I, the poet gives three explanations for clock imprecision (alloy, maker's hand, distance) and then adds a fourth (communal feuds). Each is grammatically parallel, but the last is of a completely different moral weight. This is a rhetorical technique borrowed from argumentative prose and repurposed in verse.

Compound Nouns as Paradox:

"peace-march time bomb" is a single compound phrase combining three separate words into an impossible unity. This compression forces the reader to hold two contradictory ideas simultaneously — exactly the experience of communal India as Ramanujan sees it.

The Second-Person Address:

"One day you look up and see one of them" — the "you" is not a specific individual but every citizen, every reader. The second person implicates the reader in the poem's tragedy: we are all inhabitants of this well-managed city, and we will all one day look up to find something gone.

Writing Task

Creative and Analytical Writing

Critical/Creative Response — 120–150 words
The poem ends with one clocktower "eyeless, silent" after communal violence. Write a response from the perspective of a resident of this city who has grown up listening to all the towers beat their imperfect rhythm together. What did that sound mean to you? What does its absence mean now?

Structure your response to include:

  • A description of the sound of the towers as you remember it (the imperfection that was, somehow, the music of the city)
  • The moment you first noticed the silence — what it felt like, what it looked like
  • A reflection on what was lost beyond the physical tower — community, memory, shared time
  • An ending that neither condemns nor accepts, but laments — the tone Ramanujan himself uses

Language Study Cross-Connection: Compare the poetic expression in this poem with Donne's "A Lecture Upon the Shadow." How do prosodic features (rhyme, rhythm, metre), vocabulary choices, and thematic concerns differ across four centuries of English poetry?

FAQ

What is Time and Time Again – A.K. Ramanujan about?

Time and Time Again – A.K. Ramanujan is a lesson from the NCERT English textbook covering important literary and language concepts with vocabulary, literary devices, and exercises.

What vocabulary is in Time and Time Again – A.K. Ramanujan?

Key vocabulary words from Time and Time Again – A.K. Ramanujan are highlighted with contextual meanings and usage examples throughout the lesson.

What literary devices are in Time and Time Again – A.K. Ramanujan?

Time and Time Again – A.K. Ramanujan uses various literary devices including imagery, symbolism, and figurative language identified with coloured tags.

What exercises are in Time and Time Again – A.K. Ramanujan?

Exercises include extract-based comprehension questions, grammar workshops, vocabulary activities, and writing tasks with model answers.

How does Time and Time Again – A.K. Ramanujan help exam prep?

Time and Time Again – A.K. Ramanujan includes CBSE-format questions and model answers following Bloom's Taxonomy levels L1-L6.

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