He: (Shey) (Modern Classics (Penguin)) (16 page)

God and fiend have met to squabble

Over how the scales are sung:

The purest notes begin to wobble,

Bursting forth from every lung.

Sudden split in single raga,

Strings go
snap!
and rhythms swerve:

All day passes in this saga,

Beats thumped out with reckless verve.

‘Our committee was up in arms: “This won’t do. He’s still faithful to the conventions of his caste—weak pulse, compulsive cleanliness. What we want is a reckless disregard for metre and rhythm.” We gave the poet some more time, and told him, “Gird up your loins, and plunge into the fray one more time. Hammer the message of power into the ears of Bengal’s youth. Remember— all over the world today, it is power that’s pushing on relentlessly. Is Bengal to stay asleep?” I realized the poet’s insides were churning. “Never, never!” he exclaimed. Chewing furiously on his pen, he rushed to the table. With folded hands, he implored elephant-headed Ganesh, “Send away your bride the banana tree.
¹⁰³
O giver of boons! Toss my brains with your trunk; let an earthquake attack my mother tongue; let a turbid force erupt from my pen; let the sons of Bengal wake to its harsh discordance!” Fifteen minutes later, the poet burst out of his room and began to recite in a yell. His face was flushed, his hair in disarray—you should have seen him.

Shout aloud the battle cry,

Let your kicks and punches fly.

Fierce Mar-hatta,
¹⁰⁴
quickly come,

Plunge into this bloody scrum.

From this fight no stalwart spare,

Pull them out from every lair.

Rain down cuffs and blows and knocks,

Bring your brickbats, stones and rocks,

Smash your noses and your pates,

Send your bones all to their fates.

With your biffs and thuds and screams

Rouse the sleepers from their dreams,

Let them too, with angry yell,

Fall on you and pound you well.

Hush the singing of the flute:

From the soil we must uproot

With cruel wrench that gentle flower,

Pride of Bengal’s native bower,

And in our gardens, give its place

To jungle-creeper’s sterner race.

‘I threw up my hands in despair. “Stop, stop! Jayadeva’s
¹⁰⁵
spirits are still perched on your shoulders, conducting a circus of rhyme and rhythm, controlling your poetic ear. If you want to offer that poem to your dead ancestors at Gaya,
¹⁰⁶
I’d advise you to grind it up with mortar and pestle, tear it, gnaw it, mortify it as much as you can, then spatter it with dots.”

‘The poet folded his hands and said, “I’m not equal to it— you take over.”

‘I said, “I see a faint glimmer of hope in your use of the word ‘Mar-hatta’. But you’ve just yanked it out of the dictionary. The root of its meaning still lies buried—only the shoots of warlike sounds pierce through the soil. I’ll throw it into disarray—note the shape that emerges.

Tally-ho Mar-hatta brave!

Mutton-chop whiskers,

Defiant of the smoothest shave.

Orchestra of grinding bones

Squeak, squeak, screech.

Rumble, rumble, rumble.

Biff, bang, thud.

Cudgel

Crash

Out cold

Compound fracture.

Bang.

Rumble tumble.

Deukinandan.

Jhanjhan Pandey.

Kundan the carter.

Banke Bihari
.

Rattle-bang clip-clop.

Knock-knock flip-flop.

Bump bump.

Muffle scuffle.

Ho ho hoo hoo ha ha

P q r s t u v w x—

Inferno Hades limbo.’

‘Dada, I haven’t forged your work—that you’ll have to certify.’

‘With pleasure.’

‘You’ll have to write the new epic of the New Age, Dada.’

‘If I can. What’s the subject?’

‘The untuneful ogress Hirimba’s Conquest of the World.’

I asked Pupu-didi how she liked it.

‘Rather confusing,’ she answered.

‘In what sense?’

‘In the sense that I’m still wondering why I’m not disgusted by the victory of the demons over the gods. I feel strongly inclined to cast my vote in favour of those stubborn brutes.’

‘That’s because you’re a woman. Oppression still fascinates you. You’re charmed by the strength of the person who beats you.’

‘Well, I can’t say I like to be violently attacked—but when maleness assumes its most terrible form, fist upraised, it seems sublime.’

‘Let me tell you what I think. Manliness doesn’t lie in a tyrannical flaunting of power—quite the contrary. To this day, it’s been man that’s created beauty and fought with the discordant. Evil pretends to be powerful only to the extent that man is cowardly. I find constant proof of this in the world today.’

⁷³
gandharva maestros
: heavenly singers, who sang before the gods.

⁷⁴
taans
: long strings of notes sung or played as embellishments to classical
compositions.

⁷⁵
tanpura
: a stringed instrument used to accompany songs or other instruments.

⁷⁶
apsara
: celestial dancer.

⁷⁷
Saturn
: the planet Saturn (Shani in Bengali) is believed to cast a baleful influence upon the earth.

⁷⁸
last degenerate age
: Kaliyug, the last and worst of the four mythical ages into which human history is divided in Indian mythology.

⁷⁹
Lord Brahma the Fou
r-Faced
: According to myth, Lord Brahma had five faces,
one of which was burnt off by Shiva.

⁸⁰
re, ni
: notes on the Indian musical scale, corresponding to
re
and
ti
on the
Western.

⁸¹
Lord Varuna
: the Hindu god of water and the ocean.

⁸²
Grandfather God
: refers to Lord Brahma.

⁸³
This image recalls the way the goddess Lakshmi is represented.

⁸⁴
his swan
: All the gods and goddesses in the Hindu pantheon have animals
for mounts; Brahma’s is the swan.

⁸⁵
Brahmaic aeon
: an immense tract of time. 4,320,000,000 human years
constitute a single day for Brahma.

⁸⁶
the Maker of Laws
: Brahma, referred to in the original as ‘bidhi’ or ‘the maker
of laws’.

⁸⁷
Durga’s lion, Shiva’s bull
: In Hindu myth, the lion is Durga’s mount and the
bull is Shiva’s.

⁸⁸
Sachidevi
: Indra’s wife.

⁸⁹
parijat
: a celestial flower.

⁹⁰
mandar
: a celestial plant.

⁹¹
sage Bharata’s treat
ise on music
: the ancient sage, Bharata, composed the
Natyashastra
, which is regarded as the foundation of Indian classical music, drama and dance.

⁹²
veena
: a stringed instrument.

⁹³
Urvashi
: the most famous of the apsaras or celestial dancers. Rabindranath wrote a famous lyric poem addressed to Urvashi.

⁹⁴
Daksha’s Sacrifice in the Puranas
: The god Daksha arranged a great sacrificial rite to which Shiva and his wife Sati (Daksha’s daughter) were not invited. Sati went to her father’s home uninvited, and put an end to her own life when he began to abuse her husband. Hearing of his wife’s death, Shiva had the feast destroyed and Daksha killed.

⁹⁵
Annadamangal: a poem by the eighteenth-century poet Bharatchandra Ray in praise of the goddess Annada, an aspect of Durga.

⁹⁶
veena-bearing godd
ess of musical circles
: Saraswati, goddess of learning and music, who plays the veena and is therefore also called Veenapani (the veenabearing one).

⁹⁷
alaap
: a slow introductory passage played or sung at the start of a rendition of classical music.

⁹⁸
chandrabindu
: in the Bengali alphabet, the mark placed over a letter to indicate its nasal intonation.

⁹⁹
Pashupati
: Shiva.The name Pashupati literally means ‘lord of beasts’.

¹⁰⁰
Kalighat
: a famous temple in Calcutta dedicated to the fierce goddess Kali, to whom blood-sacrifices are made.

¹⁰¹
old tale
:
Baital P
achisi
, an old Hindi story, translated into Bengali by Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar.

¹⁰²
Reflect constantly
...: from Shankaracharya’s
Mohamudgar
. The original uses the word
artha
in the sense of money, wealth. Rabindranath punningly applies it in its other meaning, that is, sense, meaning.

¹⁰³
Ganesh has a banana tree (
kalabou
) for a bride.

¹⁰⁴
Mar-hatta
: the warlike Maratha tribes who once inhabited present-day
Maharashtra.The use of the archaic Mar-hatta allows a pun with the Bengali
word ‘mar’ (beating).

¹⁰⁵
Jayadeva
: a famous medieval Bengali poet, author of the
Gita Govinda
.

¹⁰⁶
Gaya
: a place in Bihar believed to be specially propitious for the rites of
the dead.

PUPU-DIDI’S PRIDE WAS HURT. IN THE FALLING DUSK, SHE CAME AND SAT close to me, leaning on the arm of my chair. Looking the other way, she said, ‘You keep making up childish stories about me. What pleasure do you get out of it?’

Nowadays, I lack the courage to laugh at her words. So I put on an affable expression and replied, ‘At your age, you’re all anxious to give proof of your mature wisdom. At my time of life, one likes to think that one’s spirit is still young. So when I get the chance, I absorb myself in acts of made-up childishness. Perhaps they’re unbecoming at times.’

‘Well, if you’re childish all the time, then it’s not real childishness. The young always show signs of age.’

‘Now that’s a marvellous thing you’ve said, Didi. Even a baby’s soft body has a frame of unyielding bone. How could I have forgotten this?’

‘You seem to suggest that nothing happened in my childhood that was funny but needn’t be made fun of.’

‘Give me an example.’

‘Think of our schoolmaster. He was peculiar, but peculiar through and through. That’s why we liked him so much.’

‘Do remind me of some of the things he used to say.’

‘I remember his face clearly even today. In class, he seemed to be completely detached; he knew all the books by heart. His face turned upwards, he would reel off the lesson: it seemed as if the words were raining down from the heavens. He didn’t seem bothered whether we attended class or listened attentively to the lesson: he was content to leave it to our discretion.’

‘I suppose he didn’t have much chance to get to know you by your faces.’

‘He didn’t even make the effort. One day, when I entered his room with a petition for a day’s holiday, it put him in a nervous bustle. He hurriedly got up from his chair: he thought I was what you’d call a real, grown-up lady.’

‘It was his habit to make these unimaginable errors.’

‘It certainly was! I hope your beard didn’t mislead him into thinking you the Nawab Khanzeh Khan’s private secretary. But no more joking. He was your friend: tell me about him.’

‘He had no enemies, but I was the only friend who really appreciated him. When people spread stories of his eccentricity, he would be amazed. One day, he came to me and said, “Everyone says that when I teach a class, I don’t look at them as I teach.”

‘I said, “Your friends can’t find fault with your learning, so they find fault with your acumen. They say that you don’t forget what you teach. Instead, you forget that you’re teaching.”

‘“If I didn’t forget I was teaching, I wouldn’t be able to teach. All I’d do would be what any plain schoolmaster does. I’ve completely digested the practice of teaching, my mind doesn’t fidget over it any longer.”

‘“When an aquatic creature swims in the water, it doesn’t attract attention; when a land animal does the same, it leaps to the eye. In the lake of learning, you’re a fish of the deep waters.”

‘“If I look at the students, how am I to give my mind to the class?”

‘“Where is that class of yours?”

‘“Nowhere. That’s why nothing interrupts me. If the students block my vision, I can’t see the presiding spirit of the class.”

‘“‘Ply your books, dear presiding spirit’—is that the maxim you teach?”

‘“I don’t teach! I simply let my own spirit circulate.”

‘“How do you manage that?”

‘“The way the waters of the Ganga flow. On either side, there are deserts in some places, crops in others—cities, cremation grounds. If Mother Ganga had had to take a decision at every step, she would never have saved the children of Sagar.
¹⁰⁷
What happens to one is what’s destined to happen: vying with God to force more happenings only holds up the flow. My teaching flows through space like the clouds. The rain falls from it on many fields, but the harvest each one bears depends on the field. The headmaster is vexed because I don’t waste time trying to push through the impossible. To count this headmaster as eminently real would be eminently foolish.”’

Pupu-didi said, ‘Lots of his pupils felt uneasy about him. He told them one day, “This master that you have here, I’ve erased him, so as to give your own minds the space to grow in.” Another day he remarked, “When it comes to teaching, I’m a classicist and Sidhu-babu a romantic.” Needless to say, we couldn’t make head or tail of his words.’

‘It means your teacher hoisted the entire class higher, while Sidhu carried one pupil at a time on his shoulders across potholes. Do you understand now?’

‘No, and I don’t need to either. Go on about him, it’s fun to hear.’

‘It amuses me too, because it takes a while to understand the man. One day he declared, quoting a Chinese philosopher, “The state that exists without rule is the best of all states.” ’