The Epileptic is a vivid and picturesque description of a woman who suddenly got a fit of epilepsy when she along with her husband and two children was going in a rickshaw. When the epileptic fit overtook her, her two children, feeling panicky and terrified jumped from the rickshaw and began to run amock. Since she was a pregnant woman the child in her womb remained safe where it was. The poet, Daruwalla, employs suggestive simile to describe the disturbed condition of her two children, who “flew from her side like savered wings.”
The rickshaw - puller thought himself responsible for what had happened to the woman and, so, he began to experience a sense of guilt. His state of mind is described through a revealing and picturesque expression— “the rickshaw - puller was study in guilt.” It was too much for him to bear the convulsionary condition of the woman. Her husband also was too much disturbed. He did his best to help his epileptic wife under these circumstances. He forced open her closed mouth and put a gag between her teeth so that it does not go closed again.
The traffic came to a halt. Everybody was curious to know what had happened. Most of the people came there to help the epileptic woman. Some fanned the woman, some rubbed her feet and some tried other ways revive her consciousness. A pedestrian uttered that her epileptic fits were periodic and she suffered them in menses.
She was hysterical, She did not rave and her face was flushed. She was absent minded and her head shook from side to side like that of a puppet. Some froth covered her lips.
She was taken to the hospital where some doctors spoke lightly of her disease and other doctors used difficult medical terms to describe her condition. A physician diagnosed her disease as “spike and wave electrical activity” and prescribed belladona and formaldehyde. When one of the physicians expressed that she was not doing well, she recovered. Her epileptic fit was cured. When she seemed well, her husband was trembling with fear and anxiety.
In this poem we come across examples of imagery which is striking realistic and original , for example:
“A thin edge of froth
simmered round her lips
like foam - dregs left by receding wave.”
and “she recovered, bleached by the sun of her agony.” It also evinces Daruwalla's skill in the use of words, images and figures of speech which are apt, suggestive and picturesque