Letters from a Young Poet (40 page)

Shilaidaha
11 December 1894

Nowadays I go out for my walk very early in order to avoid ——; after a long time of walking alone, Shai—— arrives. By that time I've made my mind calm and cool and swept away all the worries of the day and the scattered refuse of work to a far distance.

For a very little while it seems as if all the profit and loss and joy and sorrow of this world are as nothing. Then suddenly when Shai—— asks, ‘You haven't been feeling ill after drinking the milk today, have you?' or ‘Did the nāẏeb maśāi present all the accounts to you today?'—how strangely disconnected it sounds! We live in the exact centre of two perpetual opposites called the everyday and the eternal! Although they are eternally joined together and have always been neighbours, still, each finds the other so laughable! When you're thinking of the spiritual it seems very incongruous to speak of clothes to wear and food for the stomach, yet the soul and the stomach have been living together forever. My estates exist exactly at the spot where the moonlight falls; yet the moonlight says, ‘Your estates are a fiction,' and the estates say that the moonlight is all a sham! I, as an individual, am right in the middle.

Shilaidaha
Wednesday, 12 December 1894

You've written, Bob, asking, ‘When will world and idea unite?'—they never will completely. Because the more the world tries to catch up with the idea, the idea will proceed further on its path.
Exactly as though the idea is the older brother of the world, and there's no chance of one catching up with the other in age. So, as of now, if we can somehow make the best of what we have—in whichever way possible—we think of our lives as having been successful. Especially when we can't even always decipher which the
highest ideal
is—perhaps that which is the
nighest
is the
highest
, perhaps the
sacrifice
of your own personal
ideal
is the
higher ideal
sometimes, perhaps if I keep my life well preserved, high up somewhere my life will be fruitless, perhaps I need to descend a little in order to find some success in this world in accordance with my abilities. The solutions to all these problems are with each of us individually, Bob. The world is so tremendously complicated altogether that one doesn't have the courage to show someone else the way, because differences in personalities make each person's way of walking so different from another's! Perhaps it's best not to think too much and take the path that is nearest and then face the problems that arise on the way with as much sincerity as possible—that might be the easiest option. He who has turned our lives into such an intractable problem may eventually in the end provide a very simple solution, and then perhaps we will feel like laughing at the thought that we had been so perplexed about it in the past.

Shilaidaha
14 December 1894

Today I'd wanted to walk for a while on the sandbank in the morning, but seeing there was fog, I retreated. The sky had a few fragments of clouds floating in it as well, like yesterday and the day before. But yesterday at sunset the evening light upon these fragments of clouds looked so wonderful that I can't tell you. Small bits of pleated, curled-up clouds had turned golden at one place in
the west and assumed a new sort of beauty. So many colours had blossomed all around that for a well-known colour-blind person like me to try and describe them would be sheer impertinence. The magic of colour had suddenly affected not only the sky, but the waters of the Padma and the sandbanks as well. And then again the blue waters of the Padma were shivering and trembling a little from top to bottom in the north wind—as a result all the colours and shades of the sun's rays upon the river were set into such astonishing motion that I was simply awestruck. On the other hand, the water was calm in those places in the middle of the Padma where there were sandbanks under the water; there, in those still waters, the clear golden light fell in a completely smooth, fluid, bright, soft, luminous way—in the midst of all the variety of colour and dance everywhere, that still, sad, unmoving glow of the sunset had turned extraordinarily beautiful. And then the brush of sunset had fallen upon the banks of sand as well. These sandbanks had been under the water at some point, you see, so in places the sand bore the imprint of the waves of water up to quite a distance—in many other places, however, they were quite level and stretched for miles—the myriad shiny colours of light as they fell upon the wavy sand arranged in pleated layers made it look like the multicoloured skin of an enormous snake. I thought to myself—it is true after all that the Padma is a huge she-snake that used to live at one time upon these vast sandbanks, and now only an enormous empty skin lies glinting upon the sand—I was reminded also of the way in which she had raised her thousand hoods during the rains and struck repeatedly at the shore with a roar, thumping her large curved tail furiously again and again, swelling up as she moved—now, like a snake in the winter, she grows leaner by the day, half-entering her hole to hibernate through the long sleep of winter. As I walked, gradually these various colours began to slowly fade away, and the sky, water and land were bathed in the monotone of white moonlight—and no sign remained anywhere in the world that the day had dawned in the east once.

Calcutta
14 January 1895

Spring is slowly preparing to arrive. Yesterday it was quite hot the entire day—I couldn't concentrate, and I spent the entire day wandering around quite mindlessly. A—— came yesterday, and making polite conversation with him was also becoming quite impossible for me. All these days it was winter and there was an enthusiasm for work—I thought I could spend my entire life editing
S
ā
dhan
ā. Now, the moment a warm wind has begun to blow, it seems to me that I would much rather be the poet that I was than an editor. I feel like lying next to an open window with a slate in hand, humming to myself as I scan the metre, and continuously write poetry—in front of me green leaves and branches can be seen on the body of the bright sky and the breeze comes and touches my whole body. Even if I don't write poetry, there's always song composition; I really like doing that too in this sort of mood. The music of song can change the appearance of the entire world completely and a wonderful intoxication buzzes in the mind. But it's also better for me to remain serious and calm and careful as the editor of
S
ā
dhan
ā rather than be restless with joy, heedless and thirsty like an inebriated, plaintive and self-forgetful madman. There's an eternal youthfulness in the world of poetry and song that is not always compatible with real life. On some days, when the morning grows warmer, then suddenly, catching a glimpse of the sunlight outside, I feel instantly happy, yet worried—then I feel afraid and discouraged as I realize that this poetry resides within the marrow of my bones—it is my constant companion; at least once every year it will break out into leaf and flower from within my bones—and it will make me forget that there is no empathy at all between my inner life and outer world.

Shilaidaha
4 February 1895

It's very cold here now, Bob—I wish this fierce winter weather would end and a spring breeze blow just once to its heart's content; I would undo the buttons on this āckān and make my bed on the roof of the open
jolly boat
with my feet stretched out and leave this path of duty to concentrate solely for a few days on the completely unnecessary. If I could be editor of
S
ā
dhan
ā for six months and somebody else for the other six then that would be the most convenient arrangement—because while a man may not be able to behave madly for an entire calendar year, it's equally difficult for someone like me to maintain my
sanity
for a whole year. This enormous earth changes its seasons every couple of months—then how do small men like us keep up an equitable display of politeness all twelve? The huge problem for man is that he goes against nature when he has to function according to the laws of society in exactly the same way all three hundred and sixty-five days of the year—actually, he has to shyly and fearfully hide the eternally new, eternally mysterious core that is within him and make himself appear absolutely like a mechanical device driven by the daily operations of routine. That's why men go wrong from time to time; become rebellious; that's why men want to take shelter in literature in order to truly understand themselves; that's why the workplace is a prison and the imagination a place of freedom. That's why literature narrows down its enormous potential if it becomes
conventional
; that's why thoughts that cannot be raised in polite
drawing room
conversations gain depth and generosity in literature and freely and beautifully express themselves. In fact, to imprison literature in the civilized environs of tea-drinking and
drawing room
meetings would be a bit like dressing the generous universe in a chintz
gown
.

Shilaidaha
12 February 1895

I've found a walking companion for the evenings on this bank. The man's name is Tha——; he's quite intelligent and literary, middle-aged, the thinking type, plainspoken, and experienced in handling jamidāri work…. Every day during my walks I discuss a variety of ideas with him. I was explaining to him the particular way in which I look at the world, that I have a very intense, intimate, real and living relationship with all of nature, and that it is that love and that relationship which I feel is my truest and highest dharma, and that unless you understand this inner character of mine you will not be able to enjoy, in fact, even understand most of my poetry. I saw that he understood it very well—not only understood it, but was quite absorbed by it. He correctly intuited the exact source of my intoxication with this world. This dharma of mine is an everyday dharma; I meditate upon it all the time. Yesterday there was a mother goat sitting on the grass by the road, serious, relaxed and calm, with her infant snuggled up against her in a completely dependent and totally relaxed way—the deep sensuous experience of love and wonder with which my heart filled up on seeing that is what I call my religious discourse. The moment I see a scene like this I feel the entire world's inner joy and love in a very real and substantive way in my inner heart. If there are any
dogmas
that I don't know or understand, and see no possibility of understanding, I'm not in the least bit anxious about it. What little I
positively
know is enough for me, and gives me complete happiness. If you attempt to turn that into a
system
by adding false analyses and evaluations
to it, then its inner felt reality too is threatened. I know just this much, that there's a certain joy and love in this world—there's no need to know any more than that.

Shilaidaha
16 February 1895

Temperatures seem to be dropping suddenly all over the world. We hear from the newspapers that Europe has been wrapped in ice from head to toe, that England is experiencing a desert-like winter—perhaps the impact of that has partially reached the shores of the Bay of Bengal as well. I can't remember such out-of-the-way cold weather in the month of Phalgun in Bengal ever. I remember experiencing this sort of winter weather in the months of Phalgun and Caitra when I had gone with Bābāmaśāẏ to Amritsar as a child, where bathing-time every day would be a time of great regret. This cold has brought those memories from long ago to mind, also reminding me of sitting alone there in the long afternoons, listening to the creak and whine of the mechanism by which the cows drew water from the large well nearby, the farmers singing a monotonous modulation at a very high pitch; there was a mulberry tree leaning over the well from which I picked ripe mulberries and ate them, and I kept feeling homesick all the time. That leads to the memory of my first sight of the Himalayas when we were climbing up towards Dalhousie. My heart was smaller then, you see, so it was as if it just couldn't contain that quantity of wonder. I still remember a very large wood of pine trees there—dark, lonely, deep, cool, and shadowy. I feel like visiting Dalhousie once again; I want to see whether I feel anything like the first feeling of wonder I felt in my childhood. One huge convenience of that time was that one never needed to think about one's own needs in those days.

Shilaidaha
17 February 1895

Although it's pretty cold this morning, there's no strong north wind blowing as on other days—the river water is quite still and calm, like a mirror. There, on the other side, a boat moves slowly; three men, like three black lines drawn upon the pale background of the sandbank, tow the boat along—that's it—there's no restless current of work anywhere, no sound, no movement—the morning sun falls stilly upon the water and the sand, the morning doesn't seem to move, but rests silently in a tired, calm sort of way. I should have completed a lot of work by now, but I too was enjoying the lazy beauty of this morning in a lazy way—while wondering from time to time why those two or three men towing the boat slowly upon the desolate sands on the other shore should appear so especially exquisite to my eyes. Those who pull it are driven by hunger and are actually working very hard; the particular picture of peace and pleasure that they compose in my eyes is certainly not reflected in any feeling of peace or contentment or beauty in their minds. Whatever it is, I was not particularly worked up about finding a solution to all these thoughts—just as that slow movement of the towing of the boat was a small interlude in one corner of the all-encompassing silence of this morning, so too this little, gentle, lazy thought was a small intermission in the far corner of my mind's peaceful enjoyment: it merely added some variety to the calm. Nowadays, with the everyday compulsion of writing for
S
ā
dhan
ā, I don't find the time any more to come effortlessly and wholly face-to-face with this enormous expanse of nature—there's always something or the other working within me, making me forgetful of the fact that there is anything outside. Beauty too is a thing that is a little
jealous
, it doesn't allow itself to be caught unless it can
claim the entire mind. That's the reason why I always say that you need a sufficient amount of solitude and peace in order to really understand and enjoy poetry or literature—it's not something you can do in a hurry, there's no way you can take in a little flavour of it in a short interval between two tasks. That's why the number of people who really like poetry is so limited. They don't have any unoccupied space or time in their minds, which are like small, overcrowded spaces. I'm afraid to open a book of poetry in Calcutta—I wait to come to the mofussil. Otherwise, maybe the thing will be spoiled for me, so that I may not like it even when the time is right. A thing like poetry is terribly cowed down in Calcutta—there it seems terribly small. Here, in this solitude, I can experience its fathomless depth and truth in the right frame of mind. Then I understand how essential it is for our character that we do so, and how starved our minds were in the city.