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After he departed the ubiquitous images of his face began to rot. On the gigantic, luridly coloured hoardings from which he had watched over the populace, his lazy eyelids started flaking and crumbling, drooping further and further until his irises looked like two moons sliced by clouds, or by the soft knives of his long lashes. Finally the eyelids fell off, giving a wild, bulging look to his painted eyes. Outside the picture palaces of Bombay, mammoth cardboard effigies of Gibreel were seen to decay and list. Dangling limply on their sustaining scaffolds, they lost arms, withered, snapped at the neck. His portraits on the covers of movie magazines acquired the pallor of death, a nullity about the eye, a hollowness. At last his images simply faded off the printed page, so that the shiny covers of Celebrity and Society and Illustrated Weekly went blank at the bookstalls and their publishers fired the printers and blamed the quality of the ink.

Explanation and Analysis:

In this passage, the disintegration of Gibreel’s public image symbolizes his fall from grace. As Gibreel departs, his image—once omnipresent and revered across Bombay—literally begin to rot. This description paints a picture of Gibreel’s declin...

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Original

Romeo

(aside) She speaks.
O, speak again, bright angel! For thou art
As glorious to this night, being o’er my head,
As is a winged messenger of heaven
Unto the white, upturnèd, wondering eyes
Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him
When he bestrides the lazy-puffing clouds
And sails upon the bosom of the air.

Juliet

O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art though Romeo?
Deny they father and refuse they name.
Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,
And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

Modern

Romeo

(to himself) She speaks. Speak again, bright angel! For tonight you are as glorious, there up above me, as a winged messenger of heaven who makes mortals fall onto their backs to gaze up with awestruck eyes as he strides across the lazy clouds and sails through the air.

Juliet

O Romeo, Romeo! Why must you be Romeo? Deny your father and give up your name. Or, if you won’t change your name, just swear your love to me and I’ll give up being a Capulet.

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