Letters from a Young Poet (12 page)

Chuhali
19 June 1891

Yesterday, I had barely sat down outside for fifteen minutes or so when the sky was overcast with terrible clouds—very deep black, loose sort of clouds coloured by a hidden light falling in their midst—exactly like in the pictures one sees of storms sometimes.
One or two boats quickly made their way from the Yamuna into this little river, set down anchor and rope, and, holding on tightly to land, settled down unworriedly—those who had come to the fields to cut grain ran homeward with a load on each head—the cows too ran, and the calves, waving their tails in the air, tried to run alongside. After some time a roar of rage was heard—a number of ragged scattered clouds arrived from the far west like breathless messengers of bad news—and then thunder and lightning and rain and storm all arrived together and began a tremendous Turkish dance.
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The bamboo trees, moaning loudly, began to sway and prostrate themselves this way and that, and the storm began to blow like a snake charmer's wailing flute. And the waves in the water lifted up their crests like three hundred thousand snakes and began to rhythmically dance along. The whole affair yesterday—how do I describe it to you! The sound of thunder refused to stop—as if an entire world was being broken into pieces in some part of the sky. I was sitting with my face upon the open window of the boat and letting my mind swing to the rhythm of the furious force of nature. Everything within me was leaping like a schoolboy suddenly on holiday. Finally, when the driving rain had quite soaked me, I shut both the window and the poetical, and sat down quietly in the darkness like a bird in a cage.

On the waterway. Shahjadpur.
20 June 1891

After receiving a reply from you all by telegram yesterday, we finished our work and set the boat off in the evening. There were no clouds in the sky, the moon was up, there was a slight
breeze—with the oars making a slapping sound, we sailed down the tributary in the face of the current. We seemed to be surrounded by fairyland. At that time all the other boats had tied their cables to the shore, furled their sails, and were lying fast asleep, silent in the moonlight. Eventually the boat reached a safe place nearby where the tributary joined the Yamuna and was tied there. But a safe place has many disadvantages—there's no breeze, it's a bit enclosed, near the other boats, smells of the jungle, etc. I said to the boatman, ‘There's no breeze on this bank, let us go to the other side.' The other side did not have a high bank—the land and the water were at the same level; in fact, the rice fields were immersed in knee-deep water. At the royal command, the boatman tied the boat where he had been ordered. At the time small flashes of lightning had begun to appear in the sky behind us. I had just got into bed and was looking out at the fields with my face at the window when suddenly a commotion arose—a storm coming. Even as we heard: ‘throw the ropes', ‘weigh anchor', ‘do this', ‘do that', a tremendously destructive storm hurtled down upon us. The boatman began to repeatedly say, ‘Don't be afraid, brothers, take the name of Allah, Allah is the master.' Everybody repeated after him, ‘Allah, Allah.' Hit by the wind, the curtains on both sides of the boat began to make a flapping sound; our boat was like a chained bird flapping its wings—the storm was making a high-pitched sound like a predatory kite suddenly bearing down to snatch its prey by the tuft and tear it away, and the boat responded by shuddering and trembling noisily. After a long time, the rain began and the storm ended. I had wanted a bit of breeze—I was given it a bit excessively, beyond all expectation. As though someone were joking, ‘Have your fill of the breeze now, and then, when you're full, I'll give you some water to drink—this will fill you up to such an extent that you wouldn't feel like eating anything in the future.' We have the status of nature's grandchildren, that's why she jokes with us in this way from time to time. I've constantly said that life is very seriously sarcastic; it's
difficult to follow its sense of humour—because the person being made fun of cannot always appreciate the fun of it all. Think about it—you're lying in bed late at night, when suddenly the earth gives you such a sound shaking that there's no place for anybody to run to. The intention is very novel and entertaining, no doubt about that, quite befitting a first-of-April trick. What fun it is to make important and respected gentlemen run from their beds in the middle of the night, dishevelled and breathless! And is it any less of a joke to wreck an entire roof upon the heads of one or two helpless, witless, just-awakened people! How that prankster nature must have laughed when the poor man was writing a
cheque
at the
bank
that day to settle the mason's
bill
!

Shahjadpur
22 June 1891

Nowadays the nights here are full of such marvellous moonlight, what can I say! Of course, I don't mean to say that you too don't have moonlit nights at your place—it has to be admitted that at your place the moonlight slowly spreads its silent authority over the meadow you have, that church spire, the silent trees and bushes. But you have many other things besides the moonlight—you have your
harmony
and
discord
, your
tennis
, your
marble tables
, the song and music sessions in the
drawing room
—but I have nothing except this silent night. Sitting here alone, I cannot begin to express the boundless peace and beauty I see within all of this. There is one lot that becomes restless thinking, ‘Why can't I know everything about the world?' and there is another lot that is frustrated wondering, ‘Why can't we say everything that's on our minds?'—in between, what the world has to say stays within the world and the inner
thought stays within…. I rest my head upon the window—like the affectionate hand of nature, the breeze slowly runs its fingers through my hair, the water flows past with a rippling sound, the moonlight shimmers, and sometimes ‘the eyes spontaneously overflow with tears'. Often, when you're deeply hurt inside, tears well up as soon as you hear the sound of an affectionate voice. The lifelong hurt that we feel against nature for this unfulfilled life turns into tears and flows silently the moment nature turns sweetly affectionate. Then nature caresses you all the more and you hide your face in her breast with even more fervour, and you attain a sort of melancholic peace that comes from ‘disinterested wisdom'. Such are my evenings.

Shahjadpur
23 June 1891

These days I really enjoy the afternoons, Bob. All around it's very quiet in the sun, the mind becomes very capricious—I pick up a book, but don't feel like reading. A kind of grassy smell emanates from the riverbank where the boat is tied, and from time to time, you feel the hot, steamy breath of the earth upon your body—it's as if this living, heated-up earth is breathing very near you; perhaps my breath too grazes its body. The short stalks of the rice plants tremble continuously in the breeze—the ducks descend into the water and incessantly dip their heads in and clean the feathers on their backs with their beaks. There is no other sound, except when the
boat
, pushed by the water, slowly leans over so that the
boat's
steps and cable keep making a sort of tender, faint sound. Not very far away there is a ferry ghat. All sorts of people have gathered under the banyan tree to wait for the ferry; the moment the boat
arrives, they quickly board it—I like to watch this coming and going of boats over a length of time. There's a village market on the other bank, that's why there's such a crowd on the ferry boats. They go to the market and return from the market, somebody carrying a load of grass, someone a basket, and some a sack on their shoulders; this small river, and on either side these two small villages, and, between them, on this silent afternoon, this little bit of business, this little current of human life flowing very slowly. I was sitting and thinking, why are our country's fields, riverbanks, sky and sun bathed in such a deep melancholy? The reason might be that in our country, it is nature one notices the most—skies free of clouds, fields without any end, the sun beating down—in the midst of this man seems very insignificant—men come and go like the ferry boat from this side to that, one hears their faint, indistinct murmur, one sees their little bit of coming and going in life's marketplace in the hope of small joys and sorrows—but how small, how brief, how utterly futile those indistinct murmurs, the snatches of song, that constant activity and work seem in this vast, expansive, endless, indifferent natural world. One sees such a large, beautiful, careless and generous peace in this idle, drowsy, peaceful, aimless world of nature and, in comparison, one can see such a persistently trying, belaboured, harassed, minute and constant disquiet within one's self that, gazing at the shadowy blue line of the trees on the distant shore, one becomes quite inattentive. ‘
Chāẏāte basiẏā sārā dinamān tarumarmar pabane
' [Sitting all day in the shade with the rustle of the trees in the breeze], etc. Where nature is cowering and shrouded in cloud and mist and snow and darkness, there man is very lordly—there man thinks that all his wishes, all his efforts will be permanent, adding his signature to all his work, he looks towards
posterity
, builds monuments, writes autobiographies and even builds stone houses over dead bodies for everlasting remembrance—many of these signs are broken later and many names forgotten, but nobody notices because nobody has the time.

Shahjadpur
June 1891

In the evening I moor my boat at the ghat in the village here. Lots of boys play here together; I sit and watch them. But the foot soldiers who are stuck to me day and night give me no peace. They consider the boys' play impudence; they think it is disrespectful towards the raja if the boatmen laugh and chat among themselves freely and openly; if the farmers bring their cows to the water to let them drink they immediately run towards them, stick in hand, to protect the raja's prestige. In other words, they think the raja's status is preserved only if the entire space around him is turned into a terrible desert devoid of laughter, play, sound or people—on the other hand, the miserable raja's heart cries out for some relief. Yesterday too they had begun to chase the boys away when I abandoned my raja's status and made them desist. The incident was as follows—

There was a mast from an enormous boat lying on the ground—a group of small, naked boys decided, after much discussion, that if they could all roll it along by pushing it together with the help of an appropriate amount of noise, they would have invented a most novel and enjoyable game. The moment they thought of it, they began work. ‘Well done, soldier, hey ho!' ‘Push it again, hey ho!' All of them began to shout and push. The moment the mast rolls around once, everybody laughs out loud with delight. But the one or two girls who accompany these boys have a different air about them. They've been forced to play with the boys because of a lack of companions, but this bizarre and strenuous sort of game doesn't connect with them. One little girl, without a word, went and sat down quite calmly and seriously upon the mast. The boys' wonderful game was ruined. One or two of them decided that in this case, it might be better to concede defeat. Moving away
a bit, they stood around with wan faces and contemplated the unshakeable seriousness of the girl. One of them came up to the girl and began to experimentally push the girl a little. But she continued to sit there quite silently and peacefully. The oldest boy came up to her and showed her a different spot at which she could have her rest, but at that she vigorously shook her head and, folding both her hands upon her lap, settled down even more compactly. Then the boy began to use physical force and was immediately successful. Their joyous celebrations rent the sky once more, the mast began to roll again—in fact, after a while, the girl too abandoned her womanly pride and noble and natural independence to join the boys at their meaningless game with artificial enthusiasm. But it was quite obvious she was thinking, boys don't know how to play, they just know how to behave absolutely childishly. If only she had at hand a yellow clay doll with its hair in a bun, would she ever join these immature, childish boys in this stupid game of pushing the mast! Suddenly they thought of another sort of game, that too was great fun. Two boys would catch hold of another and swing him to and fro by his arms and legs. There was obviously some great mystery in this, because the boys were very excited by it. The girl found it completely intolerable. She scornfully left the playing field and went home. But there was a mishap. The boy being swung fell down. Miffed, he abandoned his companions and went and lay down on the grass some distance away with his head on his hands. His air proclaimed—he wasn't going to keep any further connection with this cruel, heartless world any more, he would just lie flat on the ground by himself and count the stars, he was going to spend his life with his head upon his hands, watching the clouds at play, and ‘for the rest of my life I will not play with anybody else'. Seeing such an untimely disaffection in him, the oldest boy ran quickly to him, took his head upon his lap and began to say, in a tone of repentance and regret, ‘Come, brother, get up brother! Are you hurt, brother?' In a few moments, like two puppies, the two began a game of arm wrestling and within
a minute or two that boy had begun to be swung again! Such are man's vows! This is his mental strength! Such is his resolve! He leaves his playing to go and lie down at a distance and then again he allows himself to be caught and to be smilingly swung again in the swing of intoxication! How will such a man ever be free! There are some boys who leave their playroom and keep lying down with their head in their hands—there's a home being built in paradise for all those good boys.