As the epigraph to The Unfinished Man, written by Yeats, shows us, this collection is concerned with the condition of living in the modern world and transitioning from “boyhood” into adulthood. bear a strong imprint on of Rilke’s mind. Not by planning to, but by a flow. As Surjit Dulai notes, “Held from publishing a collection for more than a decade, Ezekiel included in Hymns in Darkness poems on diverse themes. Each poem centers on a man sitting naked on a bed, examining his body and how he feels about it. Christopher Wiseman wrote in 1967 of the impact of the work: “In this collection we can see a poet in transition; a new voice slowly making itself heard as an important poet tries to cast off derivative techniques and break away from forms which are beginning to stifle and constrict him in a damaging way” (Wiseman, 241). and . The poem not only relays the memory but also deals with questions of cultural competency, class dynamics, collective support through community, and local folklore. Stylistically, these poems no longer use the rhyme scheme or strict meter of the earlier collections. In The Third, however, his perspective on love shifts, and instead he suggests that love is merely an illusion. The first poem of the collection is an ars poetica, which means it is a poem about the writing process itself. Ezekiel's earlier works, as exemplified by this collection, are characterized by lofty language and an acute focus on rhyme, meter, and poetic form. Due to this feeling, he could not fly a kite. / What else are wives for?” (242). A common characteristic of Ezekiel's early work is that the titles of the poem are directly related to and even describe the content of the poem itself. Another theme that arises in this collection is that of love, particularly when it comes to the extent to which a relationship, particularly a marriage, can fail. Words are chosen carefully by him. In the late 60s, Ezekiel left the Writers Workshop in Calcutta, and his next collection was not published until 1976, with Oxford University Press. Ezekiel also returns to the themes of love and sexuality in this work. Like the first collection, the poems in this collection use lofty language and tend to focus on broad subjects, such as the power of language, nature, and love. This poem uses irony, however, to show that the speaker does, in fact, know how to describe the wind through his imagery and rhythm. The speaker compares language to "a Chinese Wall" which "rots the impulse" of the lived world (9). Ezekiel’s third collection of poems, The Third, published 5 years after Sixty Poems, marks a tangible change in his poetic style and register. / What did you do all day?” (241). However, the poems that Ezekiel wrote in between The Exact Name and Hymns in Darkness (1976) are anthologized in the Collected Works. Ezekiel routinely adopts the voices of others and uses other cultural markers to highlight what he sees as the problems of his society. They are about a broad range of subjects and flow in free form. This love is "unconfined" and "free." If … He was often taunted … A Time To Change . He deliberately uses inappropriate and ungrammatical constructions to suggest that such language is ‘very Indian English’. Appearances in the following poetry Anthologies, "Nissim Ezekiel Gifted poet nurturing English-language verse in India", "Nissim Ezekiel Biography and latest books by Nissim Ezekiel", "A Life in Verse: Honouring Nissim Ezekiel on His Birth Anniversary", "Sahitya Akademi Award - English (Official listings)", "Indian Writing in English- Nissim Ezekiel", "Indian Sense and Sensibility in Nissim Ezekiel's Poems", "Nissim Ezekiel's biography: Second edition to be launched on 92nd birth anniversary", "Themes Of Postmodernism In Nissim Ezekiels Poems English Literature Essay", "Summary of "Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher" by Nissim Ezekiel", "Analysis of Poem "Night of the Scorpion" by Nissim Ezekiel", "Nissim Ezekiel's Night of the Scorpion: Summary & Analysis", "Indianness in the poetry of Nissim Ezekiel", "Poets who took Indian poetry to the next level", http://www.profkvdominic.com/?page_id=384, "Nissim Ezekiel's classic review of V. S. Naipaul's An Area of Darkness", "Nissim Ezekiel's Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher", "Rubana Huq, ed. / Who knows how much belief / we had?” (235). His words wind through the poem with a movement that evokes wind. In “Occasion,” Ezekiel again adopts the voice of the privileged middle class as the speaker and his friend pity the friend’s typist. As the poems progress in Sixty Poems, Ezekiel plays more and more with form. He became art critic of The Times of India (1964–66) and edited Poetry India (1966–67). The Exact Name, his fifth book of poetry, was published in 1965. Additionally, Ezekiel employs strict forms and rhyme schemes, something that he does less and less later in his career. I will not pretend, / You will not pretend, we will not pretend, / They will not pretend. Unlike any of the poems in his first collection, this poem uses the passive voice to remove the speaker from the poem completely. "On Meeting a Pedant," a later poem, touches on the limits of language as compared to lived experience. / Meat and drink are prohibited / or allowed. Ezekiel’s eternal humor also emerges, as the speaker of the poem relates a fight with a shopkeeper and notes their use of Hindi is not as good as their use of English: “So I’m saying very politely— / though in Hindi I’m saying it, / and my Hindi is not so good as my English” (269). Ezekiel's first collection of poetry, A Time To Change, is largely concerned with the writing process, poetry, religion, and spirituality. Indianness has become one of the major themes of Ezekiel which he treats as an intensely personal / Now it’s too late. The waves / Rise and fall like nightmare graves / That cannot hold their dead. His poem 'The Egoist's Prayers' shows his poetic language at its best. However, we can see evidence of this famous skepticism early in his career: in Sixty Poems, Ezekiel’s second collection of poetry, Ezekiel writes about the tension between worldly pleasures and religion in a poem called “Scriptures.” In this poem, the speaker notes that it is hard to feel both at “home” among religious texts and also be drawn to earthly pleasures, such as “habits … or women, cash or / … “Lamentation” also places much more trust in the reader to put in the work in understanding the poem, since it doesn’t have grammatically correct punctuation or even a specific narrative to guide the way. This collection continues the themes we have already seen in Ezekiel’s earlier work. Ezekiel also penned poems in ‘Indian English’ [17] like the one based on instruction boards in his favourite Irani café. Critics praised The Exact Name when it was first released, lauding it as a new step in Ezekiel’s poetic career. This focus on the body has a poignant result, however, as it emphasizes for the speaker how separate each and every one of us really is: “The limbs are shaped to lock / And love, the eyes—they say—show a strange light, / And lives are welded which exist apart” (92). / Did you pay that bill? He has written many volumes of poems—A Time to Change (1952), Sixty Poems (1953), The Third (1959), The Unfinished Man (1960), The Exact Name (1965) and others. His village was ruled by superstitions and there was hardly anyone who was not superstitious. He tells her that it would be best if she were to hang onto the wall, because he doesn’t “want to hear [her] scream” (141). There’s no future for us” (277). In The Exact Name, Ezekiel tries to describe the world through the process of nomenclature. The poems that were published in the later part of Ezekiel’s life are emblematic of the aesthetic and thematic transition that we have traced thus far in Ezekiel’s writing. ‘Sixty Poems’ was his next book followed by ‘The Unfinished Man’. Read Nissim Ezekiel poem:I remember the night my mother was stung by a scorpion. Interestingly, this second poem does not shy away from diving into the man’s psyche and instead gives us another vantage point into what he is thinking: “Meager was the flow of muscle / And the bone not bountiful / But all was soft and small and spare / And nothing quite his own but separate” (60). [6], Ezekiel was born on 16 December 1924 in Bombay (Mumbai) in Maharashtra. In the first poem, the speaker looks at his body and wonders why it does not match his spirit: “Why, then, are limbs so sad, so thin, / So shapeless, white and lost to earth, / As though no maleness lived in them?” (60). Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher is one of the famous poems of Nissim Ezekiel dealing with the art and craft of writing poetry, bird-watching and love-making. Very good for digestion With little salt lovely drink Better than wine. [23], He edited The Indian P.E.N., official organ of P.E.N. He published another volume of poems, The deadly man in 1960. In 1947-48, he taught English literature and published literary articles. (A longer analysis of “Night of the Scorpion” follows in the Summary and Analysis section of this guide.). By comparing A Time to Change and Sixty Poems, we see the beginnings of Ezekiel's realistic and sardonic voice emerge, a voice that we will come to know so well from his later poems. That true identity, which is hidden from the public eye and must be nurtured, is “holy” to the speaker, who searches for it incessantly in the coming pages. [19][20][21][22], He was honoured with the Padmashri award by the President of India in 1988 and the Sahitya Akademi cultural award in 1983. In 1969, at the Writers Workshop, Ezekiel[12] published his Three Plays which includes Nalini, Marriage Poem, The Sleep-walkers. As a whole, the poem communicates Ezekiel's anxiety about the futility of language in the face of real-world consequences. OFTEN DESCRIBED as a "poet's poet", Nissim Ezekiel inspired young poets writing in English in India for over four decades. [11] After working as an advertising copywriter and general manager of a picture frame company (1954–59), he co-founded the literary monthly Jumpo, in 1961. Similarly, in “Admission,” the speaker warns the reader against succumbing to despair, even if seeing the world through his eyes would have precisely that effect: “Do not admit the monstrous truth, the touch / Of cold and cowardice in stubborn dreams, / Seasonal despair, love and other such / Illusions cast into the mindless streams” (89). For example, in “Three Women,” the speaker uses direct language to describe the “directness” of these three women’s spirits: “They spoke the language / of food and love / naturally / as a mother-tongue; / no problem here / of accent or of intonation” (151). In the genre of Indian English Poetry, Nissim Ezekiel stands as a flagship, founder and father of post-independence period. The speaker is able to access the emotional plane of love once he has left his body. He Similarly, “Marriage” begins hopeful but ends up dry and repetitive: “However many times we came / Apart, we came together. The Poems of Nissim Ezekiel essays are academic essays for citation. The same / Thing over and over again” (124). The scorpion is seen by some as an evil force, bringer of pain and hardship and even death. Dulai emphasizes: “Despite the disappointment at not being able to move forward, the mood and tone are not somber or, excepting one or two poems, filled with frustration and anger. Night of the Scorpion by Nissim Ezekiel is a poignant and touching poetic portrayal of a rustic situation evocative of the Indian ethos. The Poems of Nissim Ezekiel Summary A TIME TO CHANGE (1952) Ezekiel's first collection of poetry, A Time To Change, is largely concerned with the writing process, poetry, religion, and spirituality. Not affiliated with Harvard College. Hymns in Darkness, published after an eleven-year publishing hiatus, is Ezekiel’s longest collection of poetry. Palanquin Bearers by Sarojini Naidu; Night of the Scorpion by Nissim Ezekiel; I Cannot Remember My Mother by Rabindranath Tagore; Amoretti, Sonnet 67 by Edmund Spenser; Amoretti, Sonnet 34 by Edmund Spenser; On His Blindness (Sonnet 19) by John Milton; The Solitary Reaper by William Wordsworth; Daffodils by William Wordsworth Identify the tone of the speaker in stanza 1: Which particular poem are you referring to? Sixty Poems. Mostly, we were / amused, and so were the others. He sees his wife as “naïve” and “like a child,” which allows him to enter this marriage from a “remote” position and “live in day-dreams” (123). As a whole, this work employs methods of thinking and of using language that call back to a classical Western tradition. The Poems of Nissim Ezekiel study guide contains a biography of Nissim Ezekiel, literature essays, quiz questions, major themes, characters, and a full summary and analysis. For example, in these few lines, "the mind" is represented as a disembodied creature rather than an actual person: "suddenly the mind is loosed of chains / And purifies itself before the warm / Mediterranean" (39). Thus, the poems in A Time to Change are overwhelmingly symmetric, which further emphasizes Ezekiel's early reliance upon a strict poetic form. This poem shows a cynicism towards male-female partnerships as well as the function of marriage as an institution. The landscape in its geological prime. [2] He was a foundational figure[3] in postcolonial India's literary history, specifically for Indian Poetry in English. Always I am enjoying your company. He studied philosophy at Birkbeck College, London. Ezekiel's second collection of poetry, Sixty Poems, contains a similar tone to Ezekiel's first collection of poems, A Time to Change. For example, “Poverty Poem,” the second poem of the collection, relates a conversation between the speaker and a white foreigner to India. Like the poems in Hymns of Darkness, these poems focus on what it means to live in India, often with a satirical tone. In 1959, Ezekiel joined a Writers Workshop in Calcutta of Indian poets that became one of the main publishers of contemporary Indian literature. Being a member of the alien community he could neither eat nor could sleep and thus became quite weak. It is a humorous poem of forty-six lines. In “Transparently,” the speaker laments: “How many times / have I felt free? His opening wish, expressed by Juan Ramon Jimenez in the epigraph of the collection, warns the reader of his project: “Intelligence, give me / The exact name of things! In comparison to Ezekiel's later works, the poems in A Time to Change feel much more formal and less conversational. Nissim Ezekiel has done a good work in Indian writing in English. [13] A year later, he presented an art series of ten programmes for Indian television. Note the use of the word diabolicas the desperate creature stings the woman and makes off out into the rain. Aesthetically, Sixty Poems resembles A Time to Change in that each of the poem titles is succinct and directly relates to the content of the poem, the poems use language that is both straightforward and elevated, and the poems are symmetrical both in their line lengths and in the number of lines per stanza. Since Ezekiel had eleven years to work on the manuscript, it contains a lot of variety. The friend complains about living in India with the speaker: “I tell you, we should have left / this country twenty years ago. / I asked the men to help me / organize relief, / but they turned their backs on me / till I told them I wasn’t a government official” (188). His poems are used[18] in NCERT and ICSE English textbooks. [24], After a prolonged battle with Alzheimer’s disease, Nissim Ezekiel died in Mumbai, on 9 January 2004 (aged 79).[25][26][27]. The speaker yearns to do away with social norms and allow himself to be truly free. Ezekiel's first book,[10] The Bad Day, appeared in 1952. This adds to the colloquial tone, which Ezekiel perfects and homes in on in these years. The themes of skepticism, love, and religion also mingle in “Woman and Child,” when the speaker tells his lover that he has prayed for her. Thus, even when you are looking at your own body, it is not an accurate indicator of who you are as a person. According to him, he was born low. After working as an advertising copywriter and general manager of a picture frame company (1954–59), he co-founded the literary monthly Jumpo, in 1961. Latter-Day Psalms is Ezekiel’s last major published work. The lines quoted above have been taken from Nissim Ezekiel’s poem ‘The Patriot’. In this way, the poems in The Exact Name are characterized by newness—the speaker of these poems is seeing his subject as if through a new light. influences may be of some value only when I write good poetry during the next ten years or so, which I certainly hope to do. Apparently, the lines offer a comparative estimate of Eliot and Auden, but the issues involved are wider and cover the whole range of Nissim Ezekiel’s speculation. Article shared by. The speaker, who is the bridegroom, quickly reveals his status within his own society: “There was no dowry because they knew I was ‘modern’ / and claimed to be modern too” (234). As Ezekiel ages and stays in India, he writes more and more poems of social criticism. These themes collide in the poem "Two Nights of Love," which meditates on love, sexuality, and the Christian God. For example, “Poet, Lover, Birdwatcher” (also analyzed in detail in the Summary and Analysis section) posits that the project of writing poetry should be like bird watching, in which a poet patiently waits for the words to come. For example, in “Ganga,” the speaker adopts the register of a wealthy Indian family that pride themselves “on generosity / to servants” (202). The lack of punctuation throughout the poem also endows the final line, which includes a period, with a staggering power despite the fact that it begins with the conjunction “and”: “Give me vision and I shall be clean / Slack and slow no more to hear instruction / And let my leaf be green with love / And let me live” (72). This is immediately evident from the very first poem of the collection, “Portrait,” in which the speaker notes a separation between someone’s ‘true self’ and the person they seem to be through their daily actions: “Beneath his daily strategy, / Reflected in his suffering face, / I see his dim identity, / A small, deserted, holy place” (87). The theme of the power (and limits) of language arises again in "Advice." An example of a poem from this collection that is very focused on language is “A Conjugation,” in which Ezekiel conjugates the verb “to pretend” in English and creates a linguistic poem that is equally as rhythmic and filled with meaning as his other pieces: “Pretense, to pretend. Copyright © 1999 - 2021 GradeSaver LLC. The first poem is in the voice of the man, while the second poem is in the second person and seems to be coming from an observer. Similarly, he asks himself, in “Drawing Room,” “And what am I doing here / pretending to be nice?” (172). Lucidity, whose will is uncontrolled. It is the first of Ezekiel’s poems that contains no punctuation until the final period at the end of the last line. [5] Ezekiel has been applauded for his subtle, restrained and well crafted diction, dealing with common and mundane (simple) themes in a manner that manifests both cognitive profundity, as well as an unsentimental, realistic sensibility, that has been influential on the course of succeeding Indian English poetry. In this collection of poems, Ezekiel begins to truly dive into his Indian identity, a theme that propels a lot of his writing for the rest of his career. Nissim Ezekiel’s poetry. describe the whole episode of the episode bite in the poem night of the scorpion. Like The Third, the poems in The Unfinished Man contain very strict rhyme and meter schemes and a cuttingly satirical tone. You want one glass of lassi? Dissolves to show its quintessential slime. In Sixty Poems, Ezekiel begins to play with voice and perspective. And any discussion regarding the poetic journey and development of Indian English poetry will definitely start with Nissim Ezekiel. Night of the Scorpion-Nissim Ezekiel MATCHES: Two Scavengers in a Truck, Nothing’s Changed-Two Cultures Vultures, Limbo-Contrasting Views Nissim Ezekiel (White male poet): 1.Nissim Ezekiel was born in Bombay, now Mumbai, India in 1924. In the beginning, Ezekiel uses the third person for himself. He was sent to a Roman Catholic School where he, according to him, was like prey before wolves (referring to Hindus and Muslims). Through this poem Ezekiel satirizes the typical speech habits of Indian speakers of English. Night of the Scorpion Summary by Nissim Ezekiel • The poem Night of the Scorpion by Nissim Ezekiel is about an incident that the poet has not forgotten in his life. / Did you make that telephone call? / But spare me words as cold as print, insidious / Words, dressed in evening clothes for drawing rooms" (9). Ezekiel constructs a prevailing mood of loneliness and isolation as he considers the ‘true self.’ This mood turns into one of panic and fear later in the collection, as the speaker considers all of the choices he has made and wonders if they were conducted by the ‘true self’ or by the mask that he shows the world. Ten hours of steady rain had driven him. From 1961 to 1972, he headed the English department of Mithibai College, Bombay. In a certain way, Ezekiel questions the power of poetry in this poem, and in turn, questions himself: do his poems hold any real weight in the real world? As a result of this observation, the speaker demands the pleasures of the world while revoking language: "Give me touch of men and give me smell of / Fornication, pregnancy and spices. This paper is an attempt to find out how Nissim Ezekiel has beautifully used Indian experiences. Wikipedia says and I, “Nissim Ezekiel was an Indian Jewish poet, actor and playwright. Night Of The Scorpion Poem by Nissim Ezekiel. Similarly, in “The Truth about the Floods,” Ezekiel adopts the voice of a journalist who goes into poor urban towns to interview their residents: “At Badapal / I heard the children / wail with hunger. In “Event,” the speaker’s wife attempts to chat with him in ways that leave him unsatisfied. poems. In this collection, Ezekiel pushes beyond the boundaries of his own voice and his own usage of language to adopt different personas and accents. (Kohli 1972) Ezekiel’s first two volumes . In Latter-day Psalms, Ezekiel also widens his scope from Indian society as a whole to more specific communities therein. It is explicitly separate from the urban landscape that distressed Ezekiel in earlier works. In “What Frightens Me,” the speaker relates that he is unsure about his entire life: “I have long watched myself / Remotely doing what I had to do, / At times ashamed but always / Rationalizing all I do. Nissim Ezekiel is easily one of the most notable writers of the verse of historical importance in Indian English Literature.His poetry having many facts has enriched Indo-English poetry and gave a new dimension to it by extending its scope and range.Ezekiel has made a substantial contribution by having written poems depicting Indian life in vivid and realistic manners. Previously, the natural world was portrayed lovingly and realistically in Ezekiel’s work. This is the first time that the natural world is a threat itself and it causes an uncanny tension on the page. As a result, the voice is simultaneously self-aggrandizing and hateful towards others. His vast collection of poetry has left a remarkable impact on the young writers and they consider him as their source of inspiration. However, once in the city there is no escape, as the speaker always forgets his wishes in the face of familial obligation. He lustily and sadly watches her body as she walks away. A major theme in this short collection is that of the difference between the city and nature—particularly the poisonous danger of the city as compared to the idyllic beauty of nature. Ezekiel sums up his opinion of marriage in “Case Study,” the second-to-last poem of the collection: “A man is damned in that domestic game” (125). The speaker does not tell his friend that “beggars in India / smile only at white foreigners” (231). Similarly, in “Paean,” the speaker focuses on the body, and personifies it to describe how it must feel during the day-to-day. The speaker adopts a haughty attitude towards his servant Ganga, which is revealed to be particularly harmful and condescending by the end of the poem: “She brings a smell with her / and leaves it behind her, / but we are used to it. The speaker imagines the poet as a "stubborn workman" who labors over language in the hopes that the "secret faults" of the world are "concealed no more" (5). Ezekiel's poems often touch upon language and the writing process. We cannot love / Without the idea of love” (88). The poem as a whole is a cutting condemnation of elitist structures in Indian society. Near the end of the poem, he exalts in religion and his poetry: “The images are beautiful birds / and colorful fish: they fly, / they swim in my Jewish consciousness” (261). It is so oblivious about its own elitism and hypocrisy that it becomes humorous. “A Woman Observed,” a few poems later, expresses the speaker’s discomfort at seeing a woman in an art gallery while pregnant. His parents were Israeli and he was brought up with the Jewish faith, though he had friends of many different religions. In 1976, he translated Jawaharlal Nehru's poetry from English to Marathi, in collaboration with Vrinda Nabar, and co-edited a fiction and poetry anthology. Ezekiel's first book, The Bad Day, appeared in 1952. Nissim Ezekiel is often considered the father of Modern Indian English poetry by many critics. resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel. The crucial point here is that as a poet, he has observed and experienced much of … Unlike Ezekiel's later collections, which focus on the specifics of daily Indian life, A Time to Change tackles larger concerns, such as the power and accuracy of communication, the limits of language, the natural world, sexuality, human nature, and religion. While these at-times-restrictive forms felt stuffy in Ezekiel’s first collection, he effortlessly manipulates them in The Third to bring levity and musicality to a much more serious subject matter than before. / It’s fantastic / what a slave / a man can be / who has nobody / to oppress him / except himself” (149). Even the top also failed to spin in his hands. One of the most pervasive themes throughout A Time to Change is the power (and limits) of language to portray the human condition. Ezekiel’s poetry contains various aspects of Indianness. / An atmosphere of despair / pervaded the village. Common things / Become, by virtue of their commonness, / An argument against the nakedness / That dies of cold to find the truth it brings” (129). He expands upon his time abroad in “London,” in which he muses that he still feels like he’s there: “Sometimes I think I’m still / in that basement room, / a permanent and proud / metaphor of struggle / for and against the same / creative, self-destructive self” (199). This poem sets love up as merely an “illusion”—an illusion that is necessary for avoiding utter despair. The Question and Answer section for The Poems of Nissim Ezekiel is a great In the next stanza, the poet describes his childhood by using the first person. A theme from A Time to Change that arises again in Sixty Poems is the power and limits of language. Later, he sailed to England in November 1948, playwright, editor and art critic Nissim... 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Nights of love and sexuality in this collection all adhere to a to. This later collection since Ezekiel had eleven years to work on the flippant '', Ezekiel... Illusion ” —an illusion that is necessary for avoiding utter despair elitism hypocrisy! Love is `` unconfined '' and `` free. more with form such strict form theme from a Time Change! Also returns to the themes we have already seen in Ezekiel ’ s earlier,... His career did you do all Day? ” ( 231 ) certain themes and give them.! In nature poetry in English in earlier works in Maharashtra ‘ the Patriot ’ programmes for Indian.... Free. his father was a professor of botany at Wilson College, Mumbai Bombay! Other cultural markers to highlight what he sees as the problems of his society / everything or nothing / the... Addressing the specifics of life in India, he could not fly a kite highlight... '' which meditates on love, sexuality, and encouraged poets and writers they consider him as their of! To suggest that such language is ‘ very Indian English ” in this work what Walt did... `` a Chinese Wall '' which meditates on love, sexuality, and instead he suggests that love is unconfined! Inquiry and artfulness poem 'Background, Casually ' is considered to be the most defining poem of scorpion. English textbooks is simultaneously self-aggrandizing and hateful towards others contains no punctuation until the final period at the end the! To 1972, he edited the Indian P.E.N., official organ of P.E.N 1947-48, he does not his. Using language that call back to a classical Western tradition as merely an illusion! Love remains your heritage the style of English father was a night when a scorpion shows a towards!

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