Letters from a Young Poet (48 page)

Shilaidaha
10 October 1895

I cannot say that I have attained what is ordinarily called religion in a very clear or firm way within me, but, increasingly, there are times when I can feel the living thing that has gradually been created in the interiors of my mind. This is not a specific belief of any kind but a secret awareness, a new inner sense. I can quite see that gradually I will be able to establish a certain proportionate balance of my own within myself; I will be able to give my life—my joys and sorrows, outside and inside, beliefs and behaviour—a certain totality. I can't say whether what they write in the śāstras is true or false, but those truths are often completely inapplicable to me—really, it's fair to say they have no relevance for me whatsoever. My ultimate truth is that which I will be able to construct with my entire life in a complete form. When we experience all of life's joys and sorrows in a scattered and evanescent way, we don't quite understand this limitless mystery of creation within us—just as one cannot understand the unity of feeling and meaning in a verse if you begin to spell each word aloud separately. But once you experience the unbroken source of unity of this creative power within yourself, you can feel your connection with this eternal, created universe; then I comprehend that just as the planets and stars and moon and sun have been created as they whirl around through time, there is a certain creation going on within me as well from the beginning of time—my joys and sorrows, desires and pain have taken their own place within it—I don't know what will come of it, because we don't know even a single particle of dust, but when I connect my own flowing life with the eternal life that is outside of me, I can see that all of life's sorrow too may be collected within a larger source of joy—I am present, I am functioning, I am going on—these are the things I then understand as a large, vast affair. I
am and, along with me, everything else is; without me not even an atom or molecule could exist in this limitless world; the connection I have with this calm, beautiful śara
t
morning is no less than the intimate connection I have with my relatives; that's why this light-filled space soaks up my inner soul in this way—otherwise, would it have been able to touch my heart even fractionally? Would I have been able to feel its beauty? Would I have been able to see all my dreams and desires reflected so completely within it? The everlasting secret connection between me and this life of the world is evidenced in the diverse language of colour, smell and song—all around us, the never-ending manifestation of this language rocks our hearts in seen and unseen ways—the conversation continues day and night.

Shilaidaha
15 October 1895

The sun is blazing down, the water shimmers, there's a slight winter breeze blowing, the river water is as still as a mirror, occasionally one or two boats pass by with a splashing sound. If I were alone I would be lying, engrossed, on a long armchair near the window—I would daydream, I would be able to hear the deep notes of the Bilāwalī rāginī that is within this sky so bright with sunlight, and I would feel my own existence dissolved, spread across, rocked in the waves of this sunlight, water and breeze—I would experience myself lying down on a bed of unfragmented, endless time—I would feel myself flow in the chatter and gurgle of the ever-rippling waterfall of life that wells up in the form of grass and shrubs, leaves and creepers, birds and animals throughout this world—my own personal envelope of personhood would dissolve in this śara
t
sunshine and become a part of this clear sky,
and I would be beyond time and place. But, right now, in this situation, it is difficult to quite immerse myself in such a self-forgetful feeling. That I am who I am, that is, someone's father, someone's husband, someone's friend, Mr so-and-so—all sorts of evidence to that effect is present everywhere.

Shilaidaha
16 October 1895

Last night, I couldn't sleep till very late, and lay on the
jolly boat
for a long time—after that I came to the
boat
and sat on a bench at the bedroom window and spent a night all alone after a long time. The river water was as still as a mirror—the light from the stars had made the night's darkness transparent; it was as if the entire universe could be seen through a dark glass. Although it was very late, the night was not completely silent because the two women who were in my neighbouring boat were talking and laughing as they lay on the bed, and a couple of boats had arrived and were creating a commotion—the other shore looked peaceful under the cover of the calm darkness—the tall coconut trees in the garden of our wooden bungalow were standing still like sentries, and you could hear the sound of a kīrtan being sung far away. There was no breeze at all. The clusters of the white flowers of kāś on our deserted sandbank seemed to softly nod off to sleep—eventually, after sitting there for a long time, when my head too seemed to bend down with the weight of sleep, I went to bed. This morning, after having had my bath, I feel as if I haven't slept enough. The ennui my body feels is pleasant—I can quite see that right now if I could stretch myself out on the bed and pick up a travel book and feel this slow winter breeze on my body, I should find it very relaxing. That's why I really like this feeling of slight tiredness in the
morning—one can abandon all one's work without regret and take a holiday for half a day. Nowadays my holidays are rationed—but I don't like this state of uselessness. When the body is fully fit, it searches out work on its own, making men restless. But today it's quite calm, feeling its own spinal cord to be a bit of a weight, and will be relieved if it can be spread out upon the bed.

On the way to Patishar
22 November 1895

My
boat
makes its way through this small river—I've been alone the whole day, not having had to say a single word to anybody. The river here has almost no current, and the floating moss emits a new sort of fragrance. The sails fill with a gently pleasant breeze—the
boat
is moving very slowly, a particular soft light upon the water, and on the near shore, a succession of many different vivacious green colours and scenes of secluded villages all ranked together gradually draw me out of my own ego, untying life's complicated knots one by one and calming the sharp edges of my self-absorbed heart. The reverberation of all the rough handshakes of Calcutta still courses jarringly through my nerves—but I can feel that gradually all of it will come to a stop, and I will know the world as eternal and vast, and all my connections with the world will become simple and easy. When you first jump into this calm, deep solitude, you feel the pull of your many ties to the world and, for a while, it hurts—but then, when I feel the embrace of a limitless affection within this deep comfort, when I feel myself intimately bound in this extremely intense, private, heartfelt relationship, the accumulated warmth in my innermost self breathes a deep sigh and attains freedom; then I understand that ‘happiness is very simple and easy', that true fulfilment resides in the depth of one's own
heart, and that no unkind fate can deprive me of it. The moment you step out of your ego you can see the vast, joy-filled world spread out before you, full of life, youth, beauty—then I feel I am blessed to have been born in this world, I am blessed that I shall be in this world for eternity—all that I know, all that I have got, all that I have felt, is such an astonishing amount for this one heart!

Patishar
25 November 1895

We're such domesticated animals that the moment we take a couple of steps outside of Calcutta and arrive at Kaligram, we think we've accomplished something really great. Our feet are tied to the peg of our homes on such a short leash that the slightest movement pulls you back—what's the point of all this writing of letters and waiting for letters! No doubt my family hasn't fallen into a bottomless ocean the moment I've come away. God has not given the sons of Bengalis the right to wander about freely and joyfully across the vast universe, we are all cows in cowsheds—at the most, the village field is the outer limit of our wanderings—and even then the cowherd is always behind you, stick in hand. Last evening I was reading an essay on Goethe by Dowden—there I saw that Goethe had left everything behind to go and spend two years in Italy in order to immerse himself in art analysis and the appreciation of beauty and had gained something of a new life and new riches in the process, and how this experience had instantly produced amazing results, transforming his talent and endowing his entire temperament with immense peace and a great sense of worth. Reading this agitates the hearts of prisoners like ourselves—then one thinks one has not managed to be even the half of what one could have been,
that there is a lot to learn and prepare for yet. I think—if I had the good fortune of Goethe, if I hadn't been born in Bengal, if there were appropriate food for the soul to be found here, then I would have attained immortality in the entire world—at present I am largely an object of pity, and poor. If I can, I too shall set out into this world at some point—that's what I really desire.

Patishar
28 November 1895

I've been wanting to put my hand to some writing, but I still can't get my mind to concentrate on work—I don't know how long it's going to take to dispel this deep apathy, perhaps by then it will be time to return to Calcutta. It seems like a long time since I've come to the mofussil and that I've spent all these days being continuously useless—if I'd been obsessed with composing songs the days would have been filled with an incessant humming and passed intoxicated and the hours would have been spent unconsciously addicted to music. Of late I've been looking after jamidāri work, reading newspapers, reading books and eating my meals. If I could only force myself somehow to throw myself midstream into the flow of writing, I wouldn't
care
for this world one bit any longer—my world would then be my own world, there I alone would be king, there I would be the god of all happiness, unhappiness and beauty. How many days am I made up of, after all, and how long will my joys and sorrows exist—but the stream of
ideas
that wells up from a source at the beginning of time and flows through a thousand minds towards eternity—that is the connection between me and all of the past and the future—in that kingdom of thought I am a complete man, not a particular
individual named Rabi—there my joy and my pain permeate the universe. The unfortunate thing is that the established goddess of that kingdom of thought is far more restless than the restive goddess Lakshmi—when I want her, she doesn't always appear, but when she wants me, then I cannot delay for a moment. I have to set aside the most urgent of tasks in the world and report my presence at her feet. In Calcutta, when I become frantic and fatigued with all the confrontations and the battles, I imagine my muse sitting, bowl of nectar in hand, in some distant secluded corner—but when I finally arrive there I see that stony Calcutta has followed me and my muse has hidden herself again in the most distant seclusion. Perhaps one day in the evening she will come silently and stand behind me in the starlight upon the roof of the
boat
and slowly rest her soft hand upon my shoulder, and I, gradually lifting my face, will see her mute face in the endless, mute sky—and there will be no more incompleteness.

Patishar
29 November 1895

There's no doubt any more about the fact that I have written to you many times about Kaligram, but still, unless you repeat yourself you cannot maintain a correspondence, and perhaps it might not exactly even be repetition—because old things too strike us in new ways; every time I renew my acquaintance with my ever-familiar favourite things, it is always partly a fresh acquaintance; a new sense of wonder appears from somewhere each time. Kaligram is not a place that is among my favourite things, but once I arrive here, its old familiar features acquire a new attraction for me. I'm really enjoying this very small river and completely domestic sort
of landscape. The river bends right ahead, just where there's a small village and a few trees, ripening fields of grain on one side, and on the high bank of the river five or six cows shooing away flies with their tails, munching on grass with a chewing sound, while on the other side the empty fields stretch on and on—there's moss floating on the river water, the occasional bamboo pole planted by fishermen in the water; a kingfisher sits upon a bamboo pole still as a picture; a flock of kites fly in the sky's bright sunlight. It is afternoon, and in front me blossoming mustard flowers on a parcel of a mustard field near the milkman's house blaze like fire—the women of the house draw water and feed the cows; in the mopped courtyard, the tethered cows bury their heads in tubs and eat their fodder; straw has been kept in heaps; a pond is being dug near the milkman's house for our kāchāri, and Hindustani women in colourful clothes take the soil in baskets on their heads and dump it in a nearby pit of water. Here everything is close at hand. On both sides of the river, this side and that, there is a not-very-large lake that disappears within the bend of the river—on either side of this lake are the only two villages. Sitting in the middle of this lake, I'm surrounded on all sides by all the everyday work and business of these two villages. This is my whole world. These people sit in front of their houses and smoke, bathe and wash clothes; they cross the small river on small canoes, paddling the water with their hands; in the afternoon one or two idle women sit unmoving for a long time on the side of the house that is shady, watching the world go by as the day passes; the village schoolboys return home carrying their shabby books in a bundle—in the evening, lights are lit in the rooms, the cowsheds are wafted with smoke, the two villages fall silent like two nests—I've lifted up the spine of the shutters on my window and absorbed myself in studying the accomplishments of Goethe in the royal court at Weimar. Where am I, in a boat in Patishar by the banks of the river Nagor, and where the court poet Goethe of the work-abundant royal court of Weimar.