Letters from a Young Poet (19 page)

Shahjadpur
30 June 1892

It is difficult for a man to understand what it means for a woman to enter a new life—especially for precocious-to-the-bones old men like us. Perhaps there's a great intoxication about it—and its intensity is increased quite a bit by its being mixed with anxiety…. That freedom may be quite joyful and a little sorrowful too. It's impossible for me to try and imagine—how does one spend days and nights with an unknown man in an unknown place! To think of it is just unbearably wearying. That's because I am a man. Women have been doing this ever since they've been created. It has become entirely natural for them. Perhaps they quite enjoy taking a new husband in hand and, taking his joys and sorrows, wishes and taboos into consideration, indulging in some serious doll play—particularly when that is your only duty in life. Here we are in our old age, when one among our many renunciations includes sitting and philosophizing about life in a room—how do we properly understand how a young girl feels when she crosses the threshold, with her entire blossoming heart and mind, from one life to another
one, and what sort of radiance fills her entire being with a kind of light! A young person's life, with its new hopes, is like a very faraway scene to someone like me—it's a place we have left behind a long time ago. But we too have a vast new life—occasionally we hear in front of us a very generous tune of hope, as if played upon an organ spread across the sky. Our new life happens when we leave happiness behind and enter the large kingdom of satisfaction—when we reject futile search and accept our duties unflinchingly. That too is an attainment of great freedom, to set out upon the road with one's entire load and sustenance upon one's shoulders. At this moment the tune that is being played in the
nahabat kh
ā
n
ā is not exactly the raga Sāhānā.
^*
The musical elaborations of the Kānāṛā can be heard—the further the night deepens the sweeter it will sound. It's good to look back at the world at this stage—all of you are ready in this new age to set sail upon the stream of life and flow in many directions in many ways—there's a very sweet melody in all of that—it's as if I can hear, with a calm, peaceful and loving heart, that amazing joyous sound of your new life, and a beautiful glow of affection and pleasure seems to emanate from my life's horizon and fall upon your new lives like words of peace. May my blessings be reflected from my heart upon your heads.

Shahjadpur
3 July 1892

Last night I had quite a new sort of dream. It seemed as though the
Lieutenant Governor
had come to some place where they had arranged a function as a welcoming ceremony for him. Among the
various amusements organized, there was a tent in which a famous old vocalist was singing. I wasn't inside the tent, but I could hear everything from outside. The singer had embarked upon quite a long song in Imankalyāṇ. While singing this, he suddenly forgot his lines at a certain place. He tried twice to remember it—then the third time he gave up and decided to forgo the words and continue with only the melody, when suddenly his singing was transformed into weeping—everybody had thought he was singing, but suddenly they saw that he was crying. On hearing him weep, Baṛ-dada immediately began to commiserate with him, saying, ‘ā
h
ā, ā
h
ā', as if he could clearly understand how much such an incident might hurt a real artist—standing outside, I too began to feel dreadfully sorry for him when I heard the note of genuine sorrow—I felt like shielding him from the circumstances that might arise in case there were some in the audience who thought the singer's sudden outpouring of grief peculiar, and expressed their irritation and ridicule without understanding its real meaning. After that there was a great deal of chaos and confusion and the
Lieutenant Governor
of the realm of Bengal flew off I can't remember where. Anyway, I quite enjoyed the first part of the dream.

Shahjadpur
4 July 1892

Today I had to go to the Shahjadpur School students' function … I arrived at the function hall at about 4 p.m. I had to go and sit in the chair meant for the chief guest. Although my audience consisted almost entirely of smooth-cheeked adolescent village students, the thought of having to stand up and make a speech made my chest hurt all of the time—although I tried to shore up my mental strength, I just couldn't make it go away. The first student
began to speak in very strange English about the benefits of good health; he said: ‘
Used key is not dirty. Great men always take care of their health. Take for instance Pundit Vidyasagar & Keshab Chandra Sen. They took great care of their health. If you do not take care of your health you get ill and you cannot study or do anything.
' We heard many more such knowledgeable sentences in English and Bengali. Finally there came a point when I too had to stand up—I completed my part as briefly as possible. In a serious tone, I said—‘Students! The subject you have discussed is one in which I am entirely deficient and that, along with an incapacity for verbal discussion, prevents me from saying very much today—besides which, the subject is such that it is very difficult to say anything new about it. But I'm sure you've clearly understood the benefits of keeping yourself in good health, and the pain of suffering from ill health, so that even if I do not say anything new to you on the subject, you will surely try and keep yourself in good health—etc., etc.' As I spoke, there were a couple of other things too that cropped up, and the lecture was not too brief after all.

Shahjadpur
5 July 1892

Today is an auspicious day here. There's been music playing since last night. Yesterday in the evening suddenly a
Brass Band
arrived here from god knows where—they play Indian tunes in an English way, somewhat like at
theatre concerts—bhyāňppo bhyāňppo
they go, beating the
drum
with all their strength—one can't stand it for very long. But this morning the raga Bhairabī was being played upon a
śānāi
—how can I tell you how extremely sweet the sound was—the empty sky and air in front of my eyes seemed to fill with the passion of locked-up tears—very sorrowful but very beautiful—I don't
understand why the same tone doesn't appear in vocal renditions in the same way. Why does the brass pipe manage to convey so much more feeling than the human voice? Right now they are playing Multān—it's made the mind so melancholy—it's drawn a cover of vaporous tears over the entire green of the world—the entire world can be seen through a curtain of the Multān rāginī. Wouldn't it be quite something to always be able to see the world through a particular rāginī? Nowadays I really feel like learning singing—quite a few tunes in Bhupali…. and the tender tunes of the rains—a few really good Hindustani songs—you could say that I hardly know any songs at all.

Shilaidaha
20 July 1892

We were just about to lose our lives a few moments ago. I'm not sure how exactly we managed to save ourselves. Anyway, I'm not unhappy to have been saved, certainly. We were travelling today from Panti to Shilaidaha—the sails were full and we were ripping along at a splendid pace—the monsoon river was full to the brim and the waves were coming up with a roaring sound—I was intermittently looking out and intermittently reading and writing. At about 10.30 in the morning we caught sight of the
bridge
on the river Gorui. While the
boat
continued towards the
bridge
, the boatmen began to argue about whether the
boat's
mast would get stuck under it. The boatmen hoped that since we were travelling against the current, there was nothing to worry about, because we could lower the sails if we thought the mast might get caught in the
bridge
, even if we were quite close to it, and that would make the
boat
slow down. But upon nearing the
bridge
we found that the mast would indeed hit it and that there was a whirlpool there. As
a result, because of the whirlpool, the current was moving in the opposite direction. That's when we realized we were facing disaster. But there wasn't much time to think—before we knew it, the
boat
crashed into the bridge. The mast began to slant sideways with a cracking sound—I kept saying to the stunned boatmen, ‘Move away from there, the mast will fall on your heads'—when suddenly another boat quickly rowed up to us and picked me up and began to pull our
boat
with a rope. Topshi and another boatman swam to the shore with the rope between their teeth and began to pull from there. Many more people were gathered upon the shore—they all pulled the boat up. But nobody had any hope. The more the mast bent to one side, the more the
boat
listed sideways—if the other boat had not come up in time, it wouldn't have survived for long. Everybody crowding the shore then said, ‘Allah has saved you, or you didn't have a chance.' After all, we are inanimate objects, you see! However distressed we were, or however much we might have shouted, when the wood hit the iron, and the water began to push upward from below, whatever had to happen would happen—the water didn't stop for a second, the mast didn't lower its head by even a hair's breadth, and the iron bridge too remained standing as before. When I reached the shore on the other boat, our
boat
was still on the verge of collapse—luckily we were so close to the shore that there was no possibility of anybody drowning. But the
boat
was a goner and, along with it, all my exercise books and other writing. The boatmen are saying this journey itself is not a good one—this is the third time this has happened. At the Kushtia ghat the rope snapped while the mast was being raised so that it fell, and Phulchand
m
ā
jhi
was lucky to escape with his life. Then again the mast got stuck in a banyan tree at the creek in Panti, and that too was quite a dangerous moment. The current there had been very strong. And then this
bridge
disaster. The only consolation I have is that even in the midst of utmost danger, I was warning the oarsmen of the danger to them, not howling or crying for my own safety; I kept a calm head. I was prepared at every moment for the terrible
manner in which the mast would break—whatever I urged the oarsmen to do was quite in order—none of it was irrational. Ooh! How my heart quails to think of you all with me in this situation!

Shilaidaha
21 July 1892

Last evening we reached Shilaidaha, and this morning we have set out for Pabna. These days the river doesn't look as it did before—when all of you had come you had seen riverbanks as high as single-storey buildings, while now it has filled up entirely, leaving a margin of only a few feet. The spirit of the river! It's like a wild young horse with its tail waving, mane flying and head bent. Pride of speed makes the waves swell up and rise—we're riding this crazy river, swaying as we go. There's a great joy in this. How do I tell you about the sound of this full river! It gurgles and chatters as if it cannot stop itself—it has an air of intoxicated youth about it. And this is just the Gorui River. After this we reach the Padma—it will probably be impossible to form an idea of the margins of its banks. That woman has perhaps become completely insane, dancing and skipping crazily, refusing any confinement. When I think of her, I think of the image of Kali—dancing, destroying and running along with her open hair. The boatmen were saying that the Padma had become very ‘sharp' [
dhārhaẏeche
] with the new rains. ‘Sharp' is the right word. The fast-moving current is like a shining scimitar, it cuts like a blade of thin steel. Like the hatchet that used to be tied to the wheels of the war chariots of ancient Britons, the Padma's fast-moving victorious chariot too has the sharp, cutting current tied like sharpened hatchets to both its wheels, cutting through both banks on either side with utter abandon…. One doesn't experience the joy of the river except at this time! We often come at the end of winter
or the start of summer, when the emaciated river has become tame and placid—there's nothing wild about it then at all. Your mother had been so fearful even then; if she saw it now, she would probably be afraid even if she were on land. Not that there is anything to be afraid of. Rather, it was what happened yesterday that was quite serious. Yesterday we managed to say
how-do-you-do
to the god of death, Yamaraj, and come away. Unless one undergoes an experience of this sort, one doesn't really realize that death is our immediate
next door neighbour
. Even when it happens you don't remember it afterwards. The image of him that flashed suddenly before our eyes yesterday is difficult to recall today. We don't think about him very much unless he absolutely descends upon us unannounced like an unwanted, unneeded friend. But although he stays hidden, he's always taking note of how we are and what we're doing. Anyway, I bow low before him with a thousand salaams and inform him that I don't
care
a whit about him at all—whether he raises waves in the water or whistles from the sky—I've filled my sails and I'm on my way—everybody in the world knows exactly how far he can go—so what more can he do! Whatever happens, I will not howl and cry.

Shilaidaha
18 August 1892

Such a beautiful śara
t
morning! How can I describe the nectar that rains down upon the eye! There's a beautiful breeze and bird call. On the shore of this full river, looking at the śara
t
sunlight falling upon this new world made happy by the rain, it seems as if this young and beautiful earth goddess is having an affair with some god of light—that's why this light and this air, this half-melancholy, half-happy feeling, this continuous trembling in the leaves of trees and fields of grain—such an unlimited fulfilment in the water, such
green beauty on the land, such a transparent blue in the sky. A vast, deep, endless love affair is being enacted between heaven and earth. Just as love has the virtue of finding the biggest events of the world quite insignificant, so too the sky here has such a feeling spread across it that it makes all the running around, the panting and the struggling, the rolling and the rumbling of Calcutta seem very small and extremely distant. The sky, the light, the air and song have come together from every direction and loosened me up and absorbed me within themselves—as if someone had picked my mind up on his brush and applied it like another coat of colour upon this vibrant śara
t
scene, so that there's another layer of intoxicating colour over this entire blue, green and gold. I'm enjoying this. ‘
Kī jani parān kī ye cāy
.' [‘I know not what the heart wants'] is something I feel shy saying, and if I were in the city, I wouldn't be saying it—but although it's a full sixteen annas of poeticism, there is no harm in saying it here. Many an old and withered poem that seems worthy of being burnt in the flames of ridicule in Calcutta comes into leaf and flower in no time at all the moment I come here….