Letters from a Young Poet (22 page)

Cuttack
25 February 1893

You'll see that my writing will progress in leaps and bounds today—today I shall surely finish the Diary I had begun to write for the Caitra issue of
S
ā
dhan
ā, which, like a heavily loaded bullock cart on a broken road, hadn't been making any progress at all. When my mind is a little unhappy,
S
ā
dhan
ā seems like an unbearable load. When I'm happy, I feel I can lift up the entire load on my own. Then I think, I'm going to work for my country, and I will be successful. The encouragement of others or favourable circumstances don't seem necessary, and I feel that for my own work I alone am enough. But sometimes I see a vision of myself in the distant future—I see that I have become white-haired and old, and I have almost reached the end of a large, disorderly forest through which I have carved a long, straight road, and at the other end of the forest the travellers who have come after me have begun to enter that road, one or two of whom can be seen in the evening light. I know for sure that ‘my efforts shall never be in vain'. Very slowly, little by little, I shall capture the heart of my country—at least some of my words shall find a place in its heart. When I think like this, the attraction of
S
ā
dhan
ā increases for me. Then I think
S
ā
dhan
ā is like an axe in my hand which will cut through the large societal wilderness of my country—I won't let it lie neglected to gather rust—I shall always keep it in my grasp. If I can find helpers, well and good; if I don't, then I must work alone.

Cuttack
27 February 1893

But the person called M—— who was sitting on the stage had given such a long speech that the audience had become very impatient. If you have to listen continuously to so many words the mind becomes quite frantic—it's just the opposite effect of meditation. One is happier sitting at home playing cards or dice. This is why I don't feel like going to the weekly sermon at the Brahmo Samaj. Everything has a good and a bad side, an appropriate and an inappropriate side. You really can't say that it's my duty to go every week and patiently sit and listen to any old person who is going to speak in any which way he likes about religion. Instead, it makes me feel dissatisfied and rebellious. The person who speaks well should speak, and I will hear what he says—that's the rule. The nobler the subject matter, the better the speaker should be. But it's become the case that a religious speech is frequently assigned to an incapable person. That's because people think a good deed is done the moment they hear anything religious—that's why anybody can climb up on a rock and speak anyhow and people listen silently and do their duty and leave. That's why nobody judges the capability of a man making a religious speech. I think this is completely wrong. A person with a finer appreciation for a particular subject cannot tolerate fraudulence in that subject. I cannot comprehend how those who have any appreciation of religion or literature can tolerate this pallid and tasteless flow of old nonsense. And I don't see how such a sermon can make those without it develop any sense of appreciation either. Actually, what George Eliot calls
otherworldliness
is how many people think unconsciously of religion—they think that the time you spend in any religion-related activity is like an
investment
entered into some ledger where the interest rates keeps increasing. But I think it's a great loss if a worthy subject is not
spoken about well enough. Not only is your mental equilibrium ruined, your innate conscious ability to understand is also destroyed. Just as listening regularly to songs that are not sung in tune is bad education, so too listening regularly to unsuitable religious sermons is a very harmful thing for mankind. That's why I don't want to get onto the stage myself to speak either: I know I don't have a natural ability for it, nor is there an irresistible urge in me to do it—and I don't consider it my duty to go every Wednesday to listen to ——'s sermons—rather, when Baṛ-dada speaks then my heart is wholly absorbed and I benefit from it. When incompetent people begin to speak, my mind fills with an unbearable impatience and irritation which is detrimental.

Cuttack
Tuesday, 28 February 1893

I'm in complete agreement with what you've said. I don't remember what I wrote to you; perhaps, in my frustration, I'd said too much. But, in my opinion, we need to be unknown and operate in private for a long time to come now. This is the time for us to get ready, not the time to dance around in front of others unprepared. The time when one is building something is a very secret time. Very small boys and girls who are allowed to participate all the time in the amusements and meetings of adults don't progress any further—if they speak a few
clever
words and imitate their elders' amusing ways and are applauded for it, they think, ‘We're perfect now, quite equal to our older brothers'—similarly at this stage in our national childhood if we too hanker after a bit of applause and a seat at the side of the meeting by displaying our outer polish and a couple of brisk English mannerisms, we will make the mistake of thinking that we have
accomplished everything. All those hard tasks without immediate reward, difficult duties, the complete dedication of heart and mind without which the national character cannot be formed—those will seem unnecessary and insignificant. Take a look at just one example—all those
patriots
who make good speeches in English, how they look down on Bengali language and literature! And the temporary benefit from that one good English speech is so slight in comparison with all that is lost because of that scorn! Once somebody has been honoured with a seat at the India or Bengal Council, how little that person comparatively values working from within society! Someone who has dressed up as an Englishman and been allowed to sit briefly at one side of an English table doesn't care an iota about winning the hearts of his countrymen any more! This is entirely natural. But we need to be extra careful exactly because it's natural. I know that if the Governor saheb spends two days on the second floor of our house reclining upon that easy chair of mine and calls me ‘my dear' while puffing on his cheroot, then this Rabi that I am, who has assumed an aspect like a ball of fire in the mid-afternoon sun, I too may be swallowed up whole in a single ring of smoke expelled from those outcaste lips of Lansdowne. What a satisfied smile would spread over my entire face then, and what sticky sweetness drip from my speech! That's the chief worry! That's why the second-floor terrace needs to be locked (just in case our Governor saheb comes by to smoke a cheroot with his dearest friend
Tagore
under that tin roof)! The Pandavas spent one year in hiding when they were preparing for the Kurukshetra war—Guru Govind spent many years out of sight, making himself ready in solitude, before he accepted the status of Guru. That is the time for us now. If we don't keep ourselves secluded at our lonely workplace to work for our own people and our own society in the deepest, most serious and completely engaged way, if we once let our hearts be distracted, if we desire constant applause for the small incomplete tasks that we have accomplished long before we are really done—then nothing will
be attained. Trees derive nourishment from the sun, but seeds shrivel up and die in it—similarly, the initial stages of work should not be exposed to outside praise or blame, criticism or scorn—it's only when it becomes a little older and pushes out of the soil that it can accept the sun and the rain and use them to become strong. Let the English criticize us, praise us, whatever—let them be unhappy with us or happy—we must not spare a single glance in that direction but continue to dedicate our lives to working for our neglected country, our neglected language, our humiliated people. It's not an easy thing to enter a doorway so low and dark, so full of insult, rejection and ignominy! Once you are used to the luxury of fame and honour, how will you survive in poverty! You constantly think—how do I get the English to read my book, how to get a slap on the back from the English, how to ensure that my detestable countrymen don't mistake me for one of their own, and how to see to it that the English accept me as a great
exception
to the rule in my country. I don't blame those who have once tasted the honour of English company thinking it's an invaluable thing—it's a tremendous attraction and temptation, no doubt about it. But that is exactly why I want to hide inside my hole. ——'s raja prefers to go to Simla and play tennis with the sahebs and dance with the mems rather than sit in his own country and govern it—and the sahebs and mems praise him much more than they do the Raja of Darbhanga, saying there is no difference between him and an Englishman—how difficult it must be for him now to be in —— and rule his kingdom! Perhaps I too might have been exactly like that—after all, I too am a Bengali, I too lack a fierce independence of my own. That's why I must store it secretly and nurture it with a lot of care—and until it becomes strong and able to protect itself I must keep it hidden and supply it with fuel and straw. After that I shall not be afraid of anybody, after that I won't be ashamed of myself—but for now I cannot trust myself.

Baliya
Friday, 3 March 1893

We are still on the
boat
. It's a small
boat
. This
boat
's been made by building a roof on a large
jolly boat
—I see now that its chief ambition seems to be to humble the pride of tall people like me—the moment I make the mistake of raising my head a little, an enormous slap from a plank of wood hits me hard on the head—it takes the wind out of you completely—that's why I've been going around with my head bowed since yesterday. There's no need to tell you, of course, that I manage to knock my head on things, stumble, get cuts on my hands or legs, and suffer similar mishaps quite effortlessly even in the safest of places; in that context, it's not difficult to imagine the misery of an absentminded six-foot-tall man in this four-and-a-half-foot boat. All the sorrow and pain that was written on this forehead now increases anew every time I try to stand up. Even that I really don't mind so much—but last night I couldn't sleep the entire night because of mosquitoes—and that I find extremely unfair. I'm used to putting up with all sorts of discomfort, but lack of sleep is something I find difficult to get used to. That's why all the joints of my body seem to have become loose today—I'm lying flat on the bed, resting on my left elbow with the
portfolio
spread out on the pillow, writing to you in the laziest way. And then over here winter's gone and summer is at hand—the sun has become warmer and a slow, cool, damp breeze comes and touches my back from the window beside me. Today neither the winter nor civilization has any purchase with me—the cāpkān and
cog
ā [outer garment] hang from the hook in an extreme embrace—I'm blithely spending the morning in a blue-and-red striped
jin
night suit, the bell isn't ringing, the uniformed khansama isn't
coming in to salaam—I'm enjoying the untidy, relaxed state of the half-civilized. The birds are calling, and on the shore the two big banyan trees' leaves make a shivering sound in the breeze, the sun on the surface of the trembling water flashes and shines when it comes inside our
boat
, and the morning proceeds in this loose sort of way. In Cuttack, watching the hurrying of the boys going to school and Bihari-babu going to court, one really felt that time was expensive and civilized society very busy. Here time is not divided into small well-defined sections—only into the two large divisions of night and day.

Teertal
Friday, 3 March 1893

This cloud and rain is all very well in a concrete building, but not very congenial for two imprisoned souls in a small
boat
. In the first place, the moment you stand up or move about you get a knock on the head, but on top of that if you have water falling on your head, it might alleviate the pain a little, but it completely fills up my ‘cup of woes'. I had thought that the rain and storm had finished in a way, and that the freshly bathed earth-beauty would now dry her loose wet hair with her back to the sun, that she would put her wet green sari to dry upon the branches of the trees, spread it out upon the fields—and her vernal orange āncal would dry up and flutter lightly in the air. But it's not quite like that yet—there's no let-up in the rains. I had the forethought to borrow a copy of
Meghdūt
from somebody in Cuttack at the end of this Phalgun—the day the skies above the endless fields of grain in front of our small house in Pandua are a wet, calm, deep blue, like the tear-filled, adoring eyes of love, I will sit on the veranda and recite from it. Unfortunately, I can never memorize
anything—I don't have the great luxury of being able to recite the appropriate verse at the appropriate time. When I need to, by the time I fumble around trying to find the book to read from, the moment is gone. Just imagine how difficult it would be if you felt like crying because you've been hurt, but you have to send the doorman to the house at Bathgate to bring back a bottle of tears! That's why each time I set out for the
mofussil
[district] I have to take a great number of books with me—not that I read all of them every time, but you never know beforehand when you might feel the need for a particular book, that's why you have to keep all the arrangements at hand. It would be much easier if men's minds had particular seasons—just as we travel with only winter clothes in the winter and there's no need to take the ulster
^*
with us in the summer, so too, if only we knew when winter or spring would arrive in our minds, we could take the appropriate poetry or prose along with us in advance. But then the mind doesn't have six seasons, it has a full fifty-two—like a
packet
of cards—you never know which one you'll pick—and I don't know the name of the whimsical player who sits inside and
deals
out the cards for this whimsical card game. That's why there's no end to man's preparations—there's no accounting for the kinds of and number of things that need to be kept at hand. That's why I have an entire range of books with me, from ‘
Nepalese Buddhistic Literature
' to Shakespeare. I'm not going to touch most of these, but there's no saying when I might need which one. On other trips I have always brought along my Vaishnava poets and Sanskrit books; this time I didn't, which is why I feel I need them the most. If I had had the
Meghdūt
with me when I had travelled in Puri and Khandagiri, I would have been very happy. But I didn't have the
Meghdūt
, I had Caird's
Philosophical Essays
with me instead—that's what one calls ‘
her-pher
' [this for that].