Madhushala , the famous poem by Dr. Harivansh Rai Bacchan is an amazing way to get the essence of life captured and presented in front of your eyes in the form of words.

Heres what i wrote in a forum about an year back…It was on the interpretation of the Poem.

Should the interpretation of Madhushala be taken as a metaphor for a bar or life is entirely upto the reader because in the poem bacchan never does explicitly mention this.

Why does one interpret it as life ? It could be that for an alcoholic the only solace he gets for whatever ill feelings towards life he has is through the mental journey he goes thru in a madhushaala.

It could also be that though Mr. Bacchan was a teetotaller he couldve written this from a perspective of an alcoholic totally dejected by life (wen in his senses) and that takin recourse to alcohol lets him live life with much more fun and peace than when he was in his senses.

Poem is available on:

Manaskriti