Letters from a Young Poet (15 page)

Shilaidaha
Wednesday, 6 January 1892

Evening has fallen. When I was on the
boat
in the summer, at this time I would sit by the boat's window with my light out and lie there quietly; the sound of the river, the evening breeze and the silence of
the star-filled sky would give the sweetest of forms to my imagination and surround me on all sides; the evening would pass till very late in the night immersed in a sort of intense, lonely sorrow and joy. In the winter the doors and windows are closed, shutting out all of nature, and my mind cannot run free in the
boat's
tiny wooden cave of a room with one lamp burning—it's as if one has to live in too close a proximity with one's self, brushing up and knocking against yourself all the time. In this situation, it's very difficult to live with one's own mind…. Speaking of literature, I had brought just two storybooks with me, but such is my wretched fate that today, while taking her leave, the engineer saheb's mem has taken both with her, and I have no idea when she's going to return them. She picked up both the books, and in a shy, pleading tone, began: ‘
Mr Tagore would you
'—even before she could finish, I nodded vigorously and said, ‘
Certainly
.' I'm not sure what one can make of this exchange. Actually, they were saying their goodbyes then, and I could have given them half my kingdom in my enthusiasm (not that the recipients would have profited greatly). Anyway, they've gone today, Bob—these last two days were a complete muddle—and it shall take me another two days to regain my equilibrium—I'm in such a foul mood that I'm afraid I might bark at someone unfairly without rhyme or reason—I'm being so careful that I'm speaking very diffidently to somebody I might have been sharp with in normal circumstances—this opposite outcome happens with me sometimes when I'm in a temper so that at this time if the boys are near me I'm afraid I might take them severely to task for the smallest of mistakes, so I don't punish them at all, cultivating stoicism with great determination.

Shilaidaha
Thursday, 14 January 1892

For the last one or two days nature here has been vacillating between winter and spring—in the morning it could be the
north wind blowing cold, making land and water shiver—in the evening, a south wind might stir up everything under bright moonlight. It's quite apparent that spring is approaching and is quite near. After a long time, a cuckoo has begun calling nowadays from the garden on the other side. Human minds too are becoming slightly restless. These days in the evenings one can hear the sound of music and song from the village on that side—evidence that people are no longer that keen to close their doors and windows and go to sleep huddled under quilts. Tonight is full-moon night—exactly to my left, an enormous moon has risen above the open window and looks at my face—perhaps to see whether I'm criticizing him at all in my letter. Perhaps he feels that the people of this world gossip about the marks on his face far more than they talk about the light. A lone partridge calls out from the silent sandbank—the river is still—there are no boats—the dense woods on the other side, stunned, throw unmoving shadows upon the water—the full-moon night looks slightly hazy, like sleeping eyes do when they are open. Tomorrow, once again, it will slowly begin to get dark in the evening—tomorrow, once the kāchāri's work is done, when I begin to cross this small river, I will see that my beloved in these foreign lands has separated herself from me a little—she who had opened her mysterious, endless heart to me yesterday—as if she suspects today that she should not have revealed so much of herself last evening all at once, and so she begins to close her heart again, very slowly. Really, nature comes very close to one in the loneliness of foreign lands—I really have thought to myself these past few days—I will not get as much moonlight any more from the day after the full-moon night—as if I'll go from a foreign land further into foreign territory; that the peaceful, familiar beauty that awaited me by the riverbank every evening after work shall not be there any more—I shall have to return to the boat in darkness…. But today is a full-moon night, the first
full moon of spring this year, I'm writing it down here—perhaps many years later I'll recall this silent night again—along with the cry of that partridge as well as the light that burns on the boat tied to the other side—this small bit of the brilliant line of the river, the coating of that little piece of dark forest there—and this aloof, disinterested, pale sky—

Shilaidaha
Friday, 12 February 1892

The other day I read a
śloka
from Kalidasa in a paper that I was quite surprised to read—

ramyāṇi bīshya madhurgaca niamya abdn

parayu
t
suk bhabati ya
t
sukhitohapi jantuḥ.

taccetsā smarati nūambodhprbaṃ

bhābsthirāṇi jananāntarasauhṛdāni.

Meaning: ‘Why is even the soul of a happy man rendered restless upon seeing a beautiful thing or hearing a sweet sound? It must be that he remembers, unbeknownst to himself, some friend from another life.' It's pretty apparent that Kalidasa's mind would sometimes be weighed down quite without reason. In the
Meghdūt
too, the poet has said ‘
meghā
loke bhabati sukhinohapyanyathābṛ
tti cetaḥ
'—seeing clouds, even the happy person turns absentminded. Beauty awakens in man the most deep and mysterious and limitless of desires, that attracts the mind and takes it from one birth to the next—it gave me great pleasure to read of this feeling in Kalidasa's poetry….

Shilaidaha
Thursday, 7 April 1892

A lovely breeze has been blowing since morning. I'm not feeling like doing any work. It must be about eleven or eleven-thirty in the morning, yet I haven't put my hand to any reading or writing till now. I've been sitting still on a chair since morning. There are so many fragments of lines and unfinished feelings coming and going in my head, but I don't have the strength to tie them together or to give expression to them. I remembered that song of yours, ‘
Pāẏeriẏā bāje jhanaka jhanaka jhana jhana–nana nana nana
'—on this beautiful morning, in the sweet breeze in the middle of the river, my head resonates with that sort of
jhana-nana
sound of anklets, but only from this side or that—hidden—not letting itself be caught or seen. So I've been sitting quietly. Do you know what sort of place I'm at? Most of the river's water has dried up, there's no water anywhere that's more than waist-deep, so it hasn't been difficult to tie the boat almost in the middle of the river. To my right, farmers plough the fields upon the sandbank and sometimes bring their cows to drink from the water. To my left are Shilaidaha's coconut and mango groves, women at the ghat washing their clothes, drawing water, bathing, and talking loudly to each other in the East Bengali dialect—the younger girls play in the water endlessly—they finish bathing and come out and then jump into the water again with a splash—it's quite wonderful to hear their loud, carefree laughter. The men come seriously, immerse themselves once or twice, complete their daily ablutions and leave—but the women seem to have a special bond with the water. The two seem to be similar to and friendly with each other—both women and water have a simple, easy, bright way, a motion that's quite flowing and rhythmical, with melody and undulation—they can establish themselves in any
vessel—they may slowly dry up in the withering heat of sorrow, but they will not irrevocably break into two at a blow. They encircle this hard earth from all sides in an embrace; the earth cannot understand the deep mystery of her inner heart; she does not produce grain herself, but if she is not there within, not a single blade of grass would grow. Comparing women with men, Tennyson said:
water unto wine
. It seems to me today: water
unto
land. That's why women get along so well with water—women are not suited to carrying many other sorts of loads, but to carry water—from the fountainhead, the well, the ghat—that has never been unsuitable when women do it. To wash their bodies, to bathe, to sit in waist-deep water at the riverside and talk to each other—all of this seems eminently suitable for women. I have seen that women love water, because both are of the same sort. Only water and women have this easy, endless flow and chatter, nothing else does. One could have shown many more similarities, but it's getting late, and one thought shouldn't be wrung excessively dry.

Shilaidaha
Friday, 8 April 1892

You must be quite surprised to hear that I'm reading so much of
Elements of Politics
and
Problems of the Future
after coming here. Actually, the thing is, I can never quite find a poem or a novel that's appropriate for this place. Whatever I open has the same English names, English society, the roads and
drawing rooms
of London, and all sorts of meaningless complications. I never come across anything that is quite easy, beautiful, free or generous, brightly tender, and rounded like a teardrop. Just complications upon complications,
analysis
upon
analysis
—just attempts at crumpling, wringing and
scrunching up human nature to spin it around forcefully in order to prise out newer and newer
theories
or ethics. If I try to read that stuff, it shall completely muddy what I have here—the calm current of this small summer-worn river, the flow of the indifferent breeze, the undivided expanse of the sky, the continuous peace of both shores and the silence all around. I almost never have anything to read that is appropriate for here, except for the shorter verses of the Vaishnava poets. If I knew a few good womanly fairy tales of Bengal, and could write them down in a simple, rhythmic and beautiful way, replete with the homely memories of childhood, then it might have been appropriate for this place. Quite like the sound of this small river, like the loud laughter and sweet voices and inconsequential conversations of the women at the ghat, like the coconut fronds that shiver and tremble in the breeze and the deep shadows of the mango orchards and the smell of the full-blown mustard fields—quite simple yet beautiful and peaceful—full of a lot of sky, light, silence and tenderness! Fighting, arguing, jostling and crying—all that is not of this shadowy Bengal, encircled by the embrace of its affectionate rivers. Anyway,
Elements of Politics
flows over the silent peace of this place like oil upon water, it doesn't disturb or break it in any way…. I'm sitting here in the middle of the river, with the wind blowing through night and day, the banks on either side looking like two starting lines of the world, where life has only just suggested itself, has not yet assumed a clear, sharp shape—as if those who draw water, bathe, row boats, graze cows, and come and go across the field's footpaths are not completely, really, alive. In other places, people crowd around, they interrupt your flow of thought if they are in front of you, as if their very existence seems to nudge you; they are all, each and every one, a
positive
human being; but here they come and go and talk and work in front of you—yet they do not push against your mind. They stand and stare at you out of curiosity, but that simple curiosity does not crowd you or overwhelm you. Anyway, I'm really liking it here.

Bolpur
Saturday, 14 May 1892

The universe has many
paradoxes
, one among which is that where there's an extensive landscape, endless sky, dense clouds, a deep feeling, in other words in a place where the eternal is manifest, there its appropriate companion can be only one person—too many people make it too petty and messy. Infinity and one person are both evenly balanced in relation to one another—both deserve to sit on their individual thrones face-to-face. And if you have many people staying together, they tend to cut one another down to size—if a person wants to spread out his entire inner soul, he needs so much space that there's no room for five or six people near him. In my judgement, if you want a good fit, then in this wide world it is possible to fit only an intimate two—there's no space for more—the moment you gather a number in excess of that, you have to lessen yourself in order to accommodate one another's demands—you have to insert yourself into the available gaps. In the meantime, I am unable to receive—with hands cupped and arms extended in prayer—the blessings of nature's deep, limitless expanse that is given so generously.

Bolpur
15 May 1892

Beli maintains quite clearly that she loves Bolpur next only to England, and Khoka endorses her opinion
ditto
—Renuka is unable to express her opinions in articulated words.
^*
She
pronounces a variety of uncertain sounds day and night, and it's becoming difficult to manage her. She keeps pointing in every direction and then tries to follow her finger in the direction pointed at—the
regiment
of servants who have accompanied me here are frequently almost all of them occupied with this tiny godhead—they are responsible for putting a stop to all the wishes that she follows up with such unruly speed and so every moment resounds with her sharp protesting wails. My little son stands still in unblinking silence—it's impossible for anyone to say what he's thinking….

When Khoka sits there immersed in his own thoughts, I feel like entering his mind. I want to see how, in that taciturn country of theirs, their feelings come and go as indistinct figures in the first light. I remember a few things from when I was very small, but those memories are so unclear that I cannot catch hold of them. But I recall very clearly that on some mornings I would suddenly, quite without reason, be filled with great joy in life. In those days, the world was shrouded in mystery on all sides…. I used to sit and dig the soil at Golabari every day with a piece of split bamboo, thinking I was about to uncover some mystery. I would gather a small pile of soil on the south veranda and, burying some custard apple seeds in it, would water it all the time, thinking that some amazing thing would happen when the seeds germinated! Everything in this world—its beauty, taste, smell, all its stirring and movement—the coconut trees in the garden within the house, the banyan tree by the pond, the world of shadows upon the water, the sound of the road, the cry of the kite, the smell of the garden at dawn, storms and gales—spread over all of this was the embrace of a large, half-known, living thing that kept me company in various forms. Just as a child has an inner resemblance of a sort with dogs, cats, sheep, calves or other animals, in the same way they have a connection in their hearts with this vast, spread-out, restless, dumb outer world.
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