Relationship: Jayanta Mahapatra

 By: Bijay Kant Dubey

Relationship, The First Volume of Indian English Poetry To Fetch Jayanta Mahapatra The Sahitya Akademi Award For 1981

Relationship is the first volume of Indian English poetry writing to fetch Jayanta Mahapatra the award for creative writing in poetry and he is the first Indian English poet to be awarded with it. But to discuss it is to know about the institution of the Sahitya Akademi award. Since when is it given to? Were there any awards before it? Were there no Indian writers of Indo-Anglican verse? The answer is definitely yes, there were some to get it. Many did not get a chance. Many felt it not encouraged. Many used to write in their diaries, but never liked to open and claim at that time. Whatever be that, let us be with it. It is also a fact that the books of Indian English verse used to be out of print and out of stock. Most of the writers were unknown. This was also true with regard to Jayanta Mahapatra. The book shops and book stalls flatly used to deny with regard to the procurement of books and used to express annoyance. Even the books were not available in College Street, Calcutta. Even at Patna the volumes of Indian English poetry could not be traced.  

When I asked about the journals, the magazines stall-sellers saw me with wonder and asked to tell the names of some more dead magazines. The teachers were also not adapted to Indian English tradition and were critical of. Just the slender anthologies of Indian English poetry were before us counted on hands, ones or twos. To get the books of Sarojini is to search antique book shops or the libraries of Nehru’s time. Who will go to National Library, Calcutta to dust the racks or shelves? Even in the eighties modern Indian English poets were just evolving poets and poetesses rather than what they are today. Do not intermix the things of the photo-copier machines’ time with that of the smart phone and the computer. Nissim Ezekiel got the Sahitya Akademi Award for Latter-Day Psalms in 1983, Keki N.Daruwalla for The Keeper of the Dead in 1984, Kamala Das for Collected poems in  1985, Shiv K.Kumar for Trapfalls in the Sky in 1987, Dom Moraes for Serendip in 1994, A.K.Ramanujan for The Collected Poems in 1999,  Adil Jussawalla for Trying to Say Goodbye in 2014. 

But we cannot who have and who have not? Who should have? Something is also not in awards and prizes. Lawrence Bentlemen too was a good poet. K.D.Katrak too was no less than in his innovative writing. The modern Indian English poets were not popular since the start, they have taken time to develop and the world too has taken time in knowing them. Had the UGC not pressurized, these could not have been included, had the Ph.D. programme been not made compulsory for career advancement! At that time Ph.Ds. done on Indian things and topics used to appear as Indian language Ph.Ds. The problem lay not with the British-text schooled professors, but with the standard and quality of Indian English verse too as it was derivative, imitative, parodied and copied, a study in minor voices and slender anthologies. The publishers too used to refuse to publish. I myself heard it and the talks passed through my ears when one research student wished to do his Ph.D. on Arun Kolatkar in the nineties as suggested by one Indian-matter inclined guide, the varsity head of the department in a dilemma hesitated if to approve the synopsis as because Kolatkar had not so many books then. 

Even in M.K.Naik’s book he talks of collecting the stray poems of the poet and publishing in  a book format. We too were not accustomed to reading Indian English verses. The high-powered specs-wearing olden time professors schooled during the British period had no interest at all in these slender anthologies and puerile parodied stuffs. Frankly speaking, Indian English verse is a study in private and personal collections. The poets are here but self-styled poets and poetesses. The other thing too is this that it is easy to work on Indian topics as for the dissertations rather than the British stuffs.

What it pains us most in reading Indian English poetry is this that there are no critical texts as for to analyze them. There are no critics of it. The fresh research students pose as the critics of Indian English poetry who are in reality the novice fellows as well as the learners of such an evolving genre of literature. Here whatever your write will be accepted. There is none to contradict your theory. The biographical details too of the nondescript practitioners whose whereabouts are unknown and obscure are quintessential as for discussing their poems. If you are able to access and approach the poet, you will definitely turn into a critic here.

I searched for the books of Jayanta Mahapatra, but could not find them, even wrote to Prof. P.Lal who too responded with the proposal of photo-stating the materials and sending them after the payment of charges as required for the research. Somehow I got the address of Mahapatra and he was kind enough to send me the books. Similar had been the case with Daruwalla. But Nissim Ezekiel asked to write to Oxford Univ. Press, Delhi, but the books too were out of stock. It took time in corresponding with, getting the reply by post, sending of the M.O.

Relationship is a long poem consisting of a few pages, not so many in numbers, but is in continuation of his relationship with Orissa and the Oriya space, culture, history, myth, tradition and mysticism. Here he grappling with the topography and cartography glides with map and map-making, telling of his connection with the land of his birth, rearing, education and growing up. Just with the visionary glides and escapades he keeps on rolling and gliding, sometimes on the boat with the boatmen, sometimes with the sailors on the ships sailing on the sea and sometimes by the shore seeing the sea shores. The Oriya landscape with the rivers, forests, hills, lakes, sea beaches, historical sites, hamlets, exotic flora and fauna he binds them into a whole to weave the myth of his own delving to take the visionary flights. The Ganga kings, who to tell about? Who there to tell about the Konark Sun temple? How the sculptures and figurines of it inscribed upon the walls? What are they indicative of? What the motif behind? The tourist spots and destinations pleasurable and refreshing, where does mind get lifted to? The wooden statues carved out of fresh wood and placed in the Jagannath temple so bizarre and grotesque lift us from our busy schedule to see the Rathyatra and the gods and goddesses on outing, the chariot pulled by the mammoth of crowds following, held by reverence and piety, looking back in wonder and astonishment, devotion and religiosity and so full of festivity, mirth and joy. To read Jayanta Mahapatra is to feel that the history of Delhi is not the history of India. The history of Bihar and the U.P. is not the history of Indian politics. While doing his M.Sc. from Patna Univ., he would have definitely felt the caste system prevalent in Bihar.

The poetry-work, Relationship appeared in 1980 from the Greenfield Review Press, Greenfield Center, New York 12833, USA. With an extract from Whitman’s Song of Myself before the start of the poem, the small book opens up in its way opening the avenues of thought and idea, dream and vision; widening the spectrum and horizon of our delving. Relationship as a work cannot be analyzed, paraphrased and annotated as because so many abstract things have been assimilated into the poetic texture of the poem delving deep into Oriya land, cartography, history, art, culture, society, tradition, belief and heritage and living. How the people are, how the land is, how their living, how their language! How their deity, belief-system! His language is so metaphoric and mythic here reminding us of the Irish myth and mysticism of W.B.Yeats. What is this Orissa? How the stories of it? How to express his love and gratitude for the motherland, the place of his nativity is the question! It is Orissa which is his love; it is Orissa his dream and imagery and with it he sleeps and awakes and arises from slumber.

Wearing the mythically embroidered bespangled coat of Yeats, he starts the tale of Orissa and Orissan myth and mysticism engaging his inner space:

“Once again one must sit back and bury the face
in this earth of the forbidding myth,
the phallus of the enormous stone,
when the lengthened shadow of a restless vulture
caresses the strong and silent deodars in the valley,
and when the time of the butterfly
moves inside the fierce body of the forest bear,
and feel the tensed muscle of rock
yield to the virtuous water of the hidden springs of the Mahanadi,
the mystery of secret rights that make up destiny;”
( Relationship, The Chandrabhaga Society, Cuttack, Second Indian Edition, 1999, p.9 ) 

A poet he can show what it is in regional history and how have we kept our histories ignored. What more do we know about our histories? Just others’ versions we hear. We do not have our standpoint. We could not take a note of that. The replica of the Konark Sun-temple is the replica of his poetry; how the wheels of it, the wheels of the chariot and how the horses of Suryanarayana! Who made the Konark Sun-temple and how? Who were the architects? Who the forgotten masons? Just like the vagabond Whitman he wants to gloss over with his visionary stance. His leaves are not the leaves of America, but of Orissa. Plucking the green grass blade, Mahapatra like Tennyson wants to pipe and sing a song. Yeats’ An Acre of Grass not, but the whole panorama and landscape of coastal Orissa is the dream vision of Jayanta Mahapatra.

 The last lines of the poem take us to a different pedestal of make-believe dream sequence:

Is anything beyond me that I cannot catch up?
Tell me your names, dark daughters
Hold me to your spaces

In your dance is my elusive birth, my sleep
that swallows the green hills of the land
and the crows that quicken the sunlight in the veins,
and the stone that watches my sadness fly in and out
of my deaths, a spiritless soul of memory
(Ibid, p.38 ) 

Who are these dark daughters? Are these the poor toiling masses of our agrarian countrified society? Are these the poor daughters of India whose tales of pity and pathos we often hear it? Are these the tears of Sita and Yasodhara falling from their feminine eyes and cheeks? Are these the dark daughters of the temples working as devadasis or yoginis? Are the priests and the middle men okay? Are the astrologers and palmists and soothsayers true to their kindred souls? Scholasticism is good, so is classicism, but where do we go to finally? Can we detach ourselves from our bare realities and earthly connections? Can we close our eyes from seeing the trouble and tribulation of the common masses? Does hunger not malign us? Are the people not living below the poverty lines? What man does not do for the stomach?

Down the memory lanes, where does he want to go? Where is he going?  What does the poet mean to say it? Is it his day dreaming or night dreaming? In a vision where does he want to lapse into? Does he want to identify his self with the self of the motherland? Here his stand is mythic and mythological, so full with the flight of imagination, dreamy glide and slide, so full of generalizations.

Divided in twelve, each section tells a tale of own. The first is grappling with myth and mysticism, the making of the land, the drift of time and the phallus stone overshadowing it all. Against the backdrop of the sea and its hazards, dark forests and dark myths of creation, he tells the tales of life and this living of ours, that of the Oriyas. There is something of Riders to the Sea of J.M.Synge in it.

The second is autobiographical but written in the form of a reverie as Dream Children by Charles Lamb is. Marking the grave of his mother, he ruminates over the passage of time as which becomes what in course of time, how memory and reminiscence play a role in human life and the images keep shifting like the sands of time.

The third starts with the first rains washing the lands and stones, sin and blood and here lies in the story of the Daya river on whose banks the Kalinga and the Ashokan armies clashed. The imagery is one of The Waste Land and The Rime  of The Ancient Mariner. There is something of the Tower of Silence imagery when we think of the skeleton remains, bodies cleansed of rotting flesh. The penance of Bhagirath and the doing away of the sins of the sons of Sagar come to the mind as and when we sit to discuss it.

The fourth tells about his imagistic meanderings and loiterings. What he means to say it is not clear. The burden of peace, how to take to? Voices of children have always wronged.

The fifth as an ode to sleep though is not is all about the soothing flight of imagination, the visionary glide taken, the dream dreamt through, with the help of imagery and reflection, nostalgia and remembrance. If sleep is soothing, where will it land, all know it.

The sixth is again a glide in which he speaks of the gathering of clouds, rains and the Ganga kings and their ruins. None to  say where he goes from where.

The seventh is all about who stands where, who is for what if the notions keep shifting, images keep swapping places. The ideas are not clear here. If one searches Jayanta Mahapatra  for meaning, one will be at wit’s end.

The eighth is all about his connections with stones, the stones of history and archaeology, geography and architecture. It is the Konark Sun-temple that he discusses it here indirectly in a visionary style of rambling. The sweep and glance of Mahapatra is splendid.

In the ninth starting from the myth of happiness he lurks around  shuttling in between dreams and imagery.

The tenth is a door relating poem in which he speaks about stumbling upon the peepul tree and the meditational connect. Slipping through the doorways and planks, one can glimpse the outward world. The doors of dreams keep unfolding and opening new avenues of thought and idea. Just lie you by the door and go on seeing the ways.

The eleventh starting with the mirror mirrors it all happening underneath the consciousness layers of his heart.

The section twelve is about the dark daughters of the temple complex, of the countryside whose trouble and tribulation keep it swapping, taking forms, bearing fruits. None strove to know what it ailed them, their spirit and self. His style is folklorish and mythical as he keeps telling in a tell-tale way of deliberation. The dark daughter, why are they? What the cause of their darkness? Are they dark really or are affectionate daughters? Can daughters be dark? And even if are, what that to? What is it the myth of darkness, is it of the Dark Goddess? There is something of the Lingam-Yoni motif, the Prakriti-Purusha concept and the Shiva-Durga story indirectly relayed through the dream vision. But the base is one of proposition and supposition; the mythic base and he taking visionary flights. What we see as things is but mass and matter and the shapes keep changing. What it is today will not be tomorrow. The human mind is always in a flux. So are the fleeting images and impressions of life.

Sometimes we ask ourselves if Relationship is Kubla Khan of Coleridge and he writing under the impact and so is Mahaptra too here under the charm of dream sequence but without taking anything. Where will the parachutes of imagination will land them to, God knows it. Jayanta Mahapatra as a poet likes to silhouette and in his poetry imagery plays an upper hand with faith being so shaky and frail. The pencil images do not remain the same as they change it from time to time.

The Indian Upon God: WB Yeats

 BY: Bijay Kant Dubey

I passed along the water’s edge below the humid trees,
My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees,
My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moorfowl pace
All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase
Each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak:
Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weak
Is an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky.
The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from His eye.
I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk:
Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk,
For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide
Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide.
A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes
Brimful of starlight, and he said: The Stamper of the Skies,
He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He
Conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me?
I passed a little further on and heard a peacock say:
Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay,
He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the night
His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light.

Who is the Indian described here? What is he discussing? Is it about Indian faith and belief system? Or, Indian culture, philosophy and religion?  What the matter is? Or, Yeats himself under the influence of Swami Purohit or Mohini Chatterjee is reflecting upon? When was the poem composed? But apart from all that it is quite clear that he has been under occultism, Eastern philosophy, theosophical society, myth and mythology since the start. Whatever be that, The Indian Upon God as a poem shows the poet’s grappling with mythologies and poetry as he interweaves them into his poetry as art motifs. His sense of Indology, India and Indian culture, Vedic and Upanishadic vision, spiritual studies, transcendental approach and pantheistic realm is so strong and rarer that we feel awestruck with that in coming to terms with such a lore draped in verse. Taking the cue from the Genesis of the Bible, he goes on elucidating in his style. But to understand Yeats is no easy task.

The Indian Upon God as a poem is all about how do the Indians perceive God and hold it to be and their concept of the Over Soul and realization of the self. To perceive God is to see it in all. Where is God not, in what is it not? God is everywhere, in each and every object that see we, find we. Taking a pantheistic stand, the poet tries to discern it by alluding to in his personal way of reflection. Nature so freckled and wild is the image of His. Just we should have the vision to see and feel it the whole pantheistic panorama. He is Matter and Mass, Mind and Spirit, Over Soul and the Over Spirit.

The poet passes along the water’s edge below the humid trees with his spirit rocked in evening light, rushes round his knees and he drifting far. In that mood of reflection and visionary glide, loiter and steps taken, sleep and sighs take over the spirit. While moving ahead, he sees a moorfowl pacing and dripping on a grassy slope. The flocks getting round or strayed far in circles cease to chase and the eldest of them is heard speaking: 

Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weak
Is an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky.
The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from His eye.

Herein lies in the understanding and metaphysics of W.B.Yeats and his grappling with Indian thought and wisdom. The poet comes to feel where peace is, what does the soul want, where to go ultimately and what it is that lasts for. A communion with the soul in the midst of Nature is the essence. Some sort of peace is needed to carry on the discourse.  The Maker of the moorfowl is but an undying being and without thinking of the fowl and its image how could he have the wild bird? He lives beyond the sky. The rains drip from His dripping wing and the moonbeams from the eyes. How amazing is it that taking the bird he composes the metaphysical lines! The poet wants to say that the One who has made us has also made the moorfowl. 

The poet moves a little ahead and hears the lotus talk about how it has been in the image of His and how Divinity is almost like that:

Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk,
For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide
Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide.

How mystical are the lines said through the depiction of the lotus and the stalk! How the lotus in scenic and panoramic in penetration! Who has made it the world and who rules it? He hangs onto a stalk. He is but a lotus, the Greater Lotus which but you know it not! He is the Lotus Divine! The Lotus of Wisdom and Knowledge! The Pearly Drops scattered over the petals! The lotus petals splashed with water drops, dew drops, growing in the midst of water are but the imagery and painting of His!

Again, he makes a room for himself and moves forward, but gets intercepted by a roebuck lying in the gloom with a unique starlit glitter in the eyes of it ready for its turn to say, break upon:

Brimful of starlight, and he said: The Stamper of the Skies,
He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He
Conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me?

The poet means too say that it is the same Creator who has made us has made the roebuck. The idea carries the kernels of thoughts as discussed by Blake and Hopkins. In the eyes of the roebuck, God is but a creature like them as because He could not have had He not thought in that context. The colour design, the marks, are but the things and ideas of His and without whose mercy it could not have been conceived. God as the Stamper of the Skies is an impressionist line expressing about the impressions made by Him. It is He who has fashioned the world as per His image and the world bears the stamps of His.

The poet passes a little further and marks a peacock saying:

Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay,
He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the night
His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light.

If we take the peacock’s version, who is that who has made the green grass, worms and its feathers? He is a great peacock which dances all through the night. His languid tail is above us, lit with the myriad spots of light. God is the Peacock of peacocks. It is really splendid to see God through the peacock imagery. Side by side it is amazing to see the peacock so wonderfully painted and designed. Colours take us to a dreamy plane of thinking. How would it have been the brush and colours of God that He applied in making the peacock and its feathers! Really, the riot of colours is appalling, bluish, blackish, greenish and freckled and at the same time so fanciful, frenzied, imaginative and dreamy! The words ‘a monstrous peacock’ and ‘languid tail’ relate to something as awe or bizarre inculcated in.

We do not know if an Indian poet can write as such. William Butler Yeats is really a great poet so mythological and profound in his expression unparalleled in history, a paragon of poetic artistry and consummate craftsmanship. Had he visited India, it would have been great, but he could not! And we too failed to invite him!

Indian Weavers: Sarojini Naidu

By: Bijay Kant Dubey

Weavers, weaving at break of day,

Why do you weave a garment so gay? . . .

Blue as the wing of a halcyon wild,

We weave the robes of a new-born child.

Weavers, weaving at fall of night,

Why do you weave a garment so bright? . . .

Like the plumes of a peacock, purple and green,

We weave the marriage-veils of a queen.

Weavers, weaving solemn and still,

What do you weave in the moonlight chill? . . .

White as a feather and white as a cloud,

We weave a dead man's funeral shroud.

Did Sarojini start writing about Indian weavers, palanquin bearers, fishers, boatmen and bards herself or someone else suggested her to do so? And it was none the else but Edmund Gosse and Arthur Symons who told her to celebrate, sing of India. Let us think of Sarojini with Edmund Gosse and Sir Arthur Symons and let us without them in the absence of the British mentors. None has striven to know, none has striven to care about. Let us think of Sarojini without Indian stuffs and connections. Poetic talent cannot get reared so easily if there are no gardeners to look after the garden of poesy. But in the case of Sarojini she got it everywhere.

Indian Weavers is without any doubt a song so lovely and charming bringing to our memory the weavers at work, making the cloth, netting, putting on the frame, measuring, printing and designing however be the method of their work. To read the poem is to be reminded of the textile industry, handloom and machine-made cloths. Here mainly the dreamy and colourful side has been touched upon. Something it is of course of the veil and shroud. Weavers, Indian weavers, how did they make the cloth? How had it been their craftsmanship?

Addressing the weavers in an indirect way with the answer tendered to or given, the poetess begins her poem with a lyrical excellence of her own. She asks how they are making the garment so attractive, catching the eyes of the on-lookers, making the dreamers dream about, putting desires on fire. The weavers respond to that they make the garments for a new-born babe so blue like the wings of the wild halcyon. Here the picture and image of a wild halcyon dances before the eyes.

Weavers keep weaving, keeping busy with work even at the fall of the night. Again, she asks why the garments are so bright.  What the reason behind? How their art, weaving art and colour design? How their concept on the canvas of the cloth? Weavers respond it that they make green and purple marriage veils for the queens to put on, wear it. The marriage veils appear to be just like the peacock feathers enchanting us with the colour design so dreamy and pearly indeed, looking rainbowish and drizzling. Here the mind gets lifted to embroidery work and bespangled designs.

But same weavers are found to be solemn and grim when the talk of the white cloth arises it. Dressed in whites sometimes looks it well, but sometimes the whites are used for the shroud to be cast over and cover up. Nuns and widows too don it. In the moonlight chill they weave the white cloth. Moonlight has been pulled in to suit the poetic purpose.

Some colour concept and the fabric design go on doing the rounds here in this poem. The poetess has added poetical colours to it as because weavers do not inculcate in specific times for weaving cloth. But something of it depends on colour choice and perception no doubt. They make cloth keeping in mind common sales, festivities and age bars. What do the people like? What is the occasion of use? But notion and rationality are something different. Something is definitely relating to capacity. Can many afford to purchase? At that time many used to go half-fed, half-clothed. Actually, just for a colour match she has arranged the scenes for the poem as she does it in the poem pertaining to glass bangle-sellers. The contours of fabrics, art work and motifs designed, colours given, painted and printed, how to tell of an age gone by and the history of art coming down to, continuing for so long with the change in models and techniques?

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening: Robert Frost

By: Bijay Kant Dubey

Whose woods these are I think I know.   

His house is in the village though;   

He will not see me stopping here   

To watch his woods fill up with snow.   

My little horse must think it queer   

To stop without a farmhouse near   

Between the woods and frozen lake   

The darkest evening of the year.   

He gives his harness bells a shake   

To ask if there is some mistake.   

The only other sound’s the sweep   

Of easy wind and downy flake.   

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,   

But I have promises to keep,   

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost and his horse, where are they going, seated on a horse and it passing through the forest tract? The scenery is excellent, a world viewed afresh after a snowfall or the snowflakes falling lightly and the silent world of nature draped in that silence and imagery, looking fresh, filled with snow and pleasant enough. The horse is passing, it is getting dark as has to go a long way, but the imagery is pleasant enough, quite captivating and calling upon, fascinating and charming no doubt, so mysterious and magical. The heart does not like to be detached from. 

The evening descending upon, enveloping the area and has a long way to go crossing the tract so mysterious and mystical, so lonely and man less and there lies the farmhouse where the family lies it waiting and have to go, have to go and have also to attend, attend some duty to be done for family, society and the nation which are but obligatory and one ought to have definitely but the sides of the same picture.

But the beauty of Nature as such the forest seems to be holding the hand and letting him not go just like the mariner of Coleridge holding the hands of the wedding guest and telling the tales in The Rime of The Ancient Mariner.

How strange is it to ask, whose woods are these as he thinks it so! Who the owner of the forests? But asking it he takes it for that his house will be there in the village. But will he whoever be it like to see him stopping and marking the woods that evening with the evening descending upon and the flakes falling? Would it be right to stop it here? We too are not sure of if he stops by to watch the beauty and mystery of the forest or just keeps taking a passer-by’s eye-view of the scenery and landscape.

His horse also finds it strange to stop by in between the woods and the frozen lake. Why is he slowing to make it stop? Why is trying to pull the reins? There is no farmhouse here but instead of why he wants to stop by, the poor animal appears to be thinking. The rainfall, the evening make the evening the darkest one of the year, never seen before. At this time, should one? Will it be not one’s folly? Is it not his mistake to stop here? 

The horse makes the bells shake to feel that it is no use stopping here rather than to be in motion, rather than keep going. It is sighing by, the easy sweep of the wind and the downy flake the other side.

Given the situation under, what should he do? He thinks it within to be answered back to feel it inwardly. When counselled from within, taking the soul in confidence, he gets the answer. He has miles and miles to go before he sleeps, yea, miles and miles to go before he goes way from here. He has duties to attend to, to his family, society and the nation which he has not so far and these need to be. The words are lovely, dark and deep no doubt, but he has also promises to keep.

The poet has not made it clear where are they going? Where is his place to go? Whose forest is it indeed? Who the owner of it? Whose farmhouse does he talk about? Why does he want to stop by? Whose horse is he   riding? From which place is he going where? What duty has he to do with scenery watching? Why does he want to cut short his visit?

The horseman has to go miles before he sleeps. But it is not clear, where has he to reach by? What his promises to keep? Whom has he promised to? What his obligations and loyalties? What his duties to do?

The poem is full of lovely imagery as for mystery lurking around, the snowflakes falling lightly, the evening taking over, darkness descending upon and it going to be enveloped in darkness and the poet as a horseman on horse-back passing through, pausing by to catch hold of the captivating scenery of the sight and the landscape. The horse seems to be questioning the master why does he want to stop where there is no farmhouse. But the poet as horseman the traveller lost into the thought of his own, thinking it otherwise, moved by the forest scenery draped in flakes and the wind soothing by.

The bells tinkling make us remind of the bells tied around the necks of cattle of Gray grazing upon the landscape near the country churchyard. The horse thinking about why the master wants to stop near a forest reminds us also of the horse champing green grass from the turf near the haunted house and that too under the moonlight in The Listeners of Walter de la Mare.

It is a song of America and Americanness, the American pastoral romanticism, farmhouses, snow-covered woodlands and Nature scenery and landscape.

It is a song of life and the traveller’s view of the world. The lessons of life are as thus so the ways of the world taking to. Where to go? How to keep the promises? But one must. One must fulfil one’s promises made to.

The paths of life are as such.

It is also a poem of horse-riding and scenery watching. The world of Nature is different from the world of man. How the ways of the world? How the ways of man?

The woods are definitely lovely, deep and dark and the path too crossing through the tract so hilarious full of awe and suspense as for the evening descending and darkness taking over with the scenery of the downy flake and the wind soothing by. 

Light: Aurobindo

By: Bijay Kant Dubey

Light, endless Light! darkness has room no more,

Life’s ignorant gulfs give up their secrecy:

The huge inconscient depths unplumbed before

Lie glimmering in vast expectancy.

Light, timeless Light immutable and apart!

The holy sealed mysterious doors unclose.

Light, burning Light from the Infinite’s diamond heart

Quivers in my heart where blooms the deathless rose.

Light in its rapture leaping through the nerves!

Light, brooding Light! each smitten passionate cell

In a mute blaze of ecstasy preserves

A living sense of the Imperishable.

I move in an ocean of stupendous Light

Joining my depths to His eternal height.

Light as a sonnet is one in the celebration of the Light Divine, the mystical flashes of it, how the light emanating, breaking upon, shining the inward and the outward to endow with the Divine Blessing, but in addition to that here the yogic, meditative strain is so strong to tell of the transformation it does when one gets stricken, blessed with the beams taking over, glittering or flashing over. But as far Aurobindo is concerned the yogic practices are the source of enlightenment felt by the incumbent. Life’s ignorant gulfs give up their secrecy and the huge depths unplumbed before lie glimmering in vast expectancy.  

It is definitely a symbolic title as and when the poet talks about light. Hearing it, we think within as for what it is light. It is light which but discerns darkness, it is light which shows the universe, it is also the light of the self, it is light which flashes mystically. Inner light we call it and without this light, one can cannot know the secret things of the world and creation. Light is knowledge, the knowledge of the self. Tamso ma jyotirgamay is but a prayer asking to lead from darkness to light. It is a prayer of a good soul and a good heart. It is a prayer for the opening of new avenues and horizons, the widening of the spectrum.The Biblical line too is excellent, Let there be light and there was light.

But here it is the light of transcendental meditation, the flower of bliss, sat, chit, ananda; the lotus of idea, thought and reflection. Here the lotus blooms in the heart, in the soul and the sadhaka gets delight in meditating.

May we ask, what it is light? Light is gnan, vidya, buddhi, knowledge, learning, wisdom. But how to get it? How to be knowledgeable? How to acquire learning and wisdom? For that one requires light, inner light, the light of the soul and the heart, the knowledge of the self and without the self-knolwedge, one cannot get it all.

But there is also a path which but leads unto Him, and it is but the path of sadhna. Sadhna as a word is a very complicated word as because it requires rigorous efforts and labour and your sadhna cannot be complete if you pour it  not your heart and soul into it. Life is but another name of sadhna. Without  sadhna nothing is possible. Only a karmayogi can do it. Channelize your energies into that. Gve your self wholly. The lotus is gnan, when does it bloom? Do you know? It opens  after the acquiring of knowledge, the knowledge of the self. But light, the Light Divine is something different. It is but the lotus of sadhna, something that do you after accomplishing it tirelessly, inculcating rigorous practice and efforts.

The path of sadhna is not easy; it takes time and it reuires penance as well as perseverance. Some accomplish it throgh bhakti, some through yoga and some through knowledge and action. Service too is not less than. But to see the Sparkle of Light, the Glitter of the Golden Beam, flashing the darker corners, what to say it?

Light, timeless Light is unchanging, always standing apart from. The holy sealed doors unclose as and when the burning Light from the Infinite diamond heart quivers in his heart where it blooms the deathless rose. Here the poet talks about the Light Divine lights it light. As the light sparkles from a gemstone so is the case herein. The Diamond Heart of the Infinite, only a gemologist can say it about.

Light in its rapture keeps leaping through the nerves. Light is, but brooding Light! Each smitten passionate cell in a mute blaze of ecstasy preserves a living   sense of the Imperishable.

In the last two lines of the sonnet the poet says he moves into an ocean of stupendous  Light joining his depths to reach the Eternal height.

Here God is Light and Light is Knowledge, the Knowledge of the Self is the central idea of the poem. How to get Light, the Light Divine? What is it in the Light Divine? How to get it?  In Aurobindo we have come to mark it that the mystical element is not so in a plenty. Only the yogic elements are strong and he comes via these. The raw things of mysticism are not easily available in him. Aurobindo as a poet is Bertrand Russellian, a poet of knowledge and wisdom and to add to further George Bernard Shawian.

Song of Radha: Naidu

By: Bijay Kant Dubey 

Songs of Radha puts it, how the states of the heart pulsating with, how the manna, inner mind, mood and heart of Radha at variance with from time to time; how the heartbeat, the heartthrob of a beloved waiting for a lover which but happens it in love? How loverly, divine and mundane is this feeling of love! How this drama of love? How this burning in love! What in it being divine? What in it being devotional? And what is it romantic? Can amorous love be only spiritual? We do not know. Love is a meeting of two hearts and souls turning one. Love is the name of some pain. The agonies of distraught lovers, how to describe it? Love is also the name of joy, but how many of us are joyful? It is also the name of pain. Many bhaktas feel it spiritual pain. Many are but the devotees.

How many of us are the adorers of nishkam manna, desireless inner mind and heart? It is also the name of giving and taking of hearts. How does it sound when one proposes romantically, I love you, I love you? What it in the feeling of surrender to God, the Maker of it all? The pulse of love none but a lover can feel it, what it is love and what it happens in love. What does it pass over the heart of the lovers which none but a lover can say it. The lila of love and we are but a part of it.

Though we call it classical love poetry, but can the classical be so in the absence of the pastoral and the folk element? The answer is assertively, ‘no’. When the hearts are in love, they feel it not how the nights pass it away, time glides and slides away stealthily. How to make it understand the ignorant manna in love and its affection for which the world has always acted as a villain! What to say about the flute of love?

At Dawn as a poem is about the love of Radha for Krishna, a form of Krishnite literature which has been engaging us since long as the saga of Krishnalila, Raaslila taking love to the pedestal of celestial love based on classicism and classical temperament. But love is a thing of the heart. How can it bound with the chains of restriction? The bird will not live in a cage. It will finally get liberated from as and when the chance comes for it to escape to. The elements of romance, love and affection are bound to be therein. Radha waits for just like a bride waits to go to, Radha waits for just as a young maiden thinks of her bridal departure or meeting. So is the case here as she keeps dreaming of her just as a bride in waiting for the groom to come and he is not a simple groom, the Divine Lover of the soul and heart. Here she dresses and un-dresses herself adding to dismay and frustration. Where is he her Ghanashyam, her King? This is the question. Where the King of her heart? The picture is just like the shy and coy mistress of Andrew Marvell’s To His Coy Mistress.

Had we but world enough and time,

This coyness, lady, were no crime.

We would sit down, and think which way

To walk, and pass our long love’s day.

Thou by the Indian Ganges’ side

Shouldst rubies find; I by the tide

Of Humber would complain. I would

Love you ten years before the flood,

And you should, if you please, refuse

Till the conversion of the Jews.

My vegetable love should grow

Vaster than empires and more slow;

An hundred years should go to praise

Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze;

Two hundred to adore each breast,

But thirty thousand to the rest;

An age at least to every part,

And the last age should show your heart.

For, lady, you deserve this state,

Nor would I love at lower rate.

       But at my back I always hear

Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near;

And yonder all before us lie

Deserts of vast eternity.

Thy beauty shall no more be found;

Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound

My echoing song; then worms shall try

That long-preserved virginity,

And your quaint honour turn to dust,

And into ashes all my lust;

The grave’s a fine and private place,

But none, I think, do there embrace.

       Now therefore, while the youthful hue

Sits on thy skin like morning dew,

And while thy willing soul transpires

At every pore with instant fires,

Now let us sport us while we may,

And now, like amorous birds of prey,

Rather at once our time devour

Than languish in his slow-chapped power.

Let us roll all our strength and all

Our sweetness up into one ball,

And tear our pleasures with rough strife

Through the iron gates of life:

Thus, though we cannot make our sun

Stand still, yet we will make him run. 

       ----Andrew Marvell in To His Coy Mistress

At Dawn

All night my heart its lonely vigil kept

Listening for thee, O Love. All night I wept.

Where went thy wanton footsteps wandering,

Sweet Ghanashyam, my King? 

My bridal veils are flung upon the floor,

My bridal garlands drop across the door.

The buds that on my bed their fragrance spilt,

Grief-scattered, wane and wilt. 

O Flute-player, how quickly dost thou tire

Of thine own gladness and thine own desire!

Couldst thou not find upon my sheltering breast

Thy rapture and thy rest? 

Whose are the fingers that like amorous flocks

Raid the ambrosial thickets of thy locks?

Ah, whose the lips that smite with sudden drouth

The garden of thy mouth? 

What shall it profit to revile or hate

Thy fickleness, her beauty or my fate,

Or strive to tear with black and bitter art

Thine image from my heart? 

Without thy loveliness my life is dead,

Love, like a lamp with golden oils unfed.

Come back, come back from thy wild wandering.

Sweet Ghanashyam, my King. 

All night she keeps it waiting, all night stands she by the door waiting for the coming, arrival of her lover, Shyam, Ghanashyam, but he does not turn up, keeping her in utter doubt and suspense to where he is wandering and taking to his time all day long. The night has started in, but he has not come, this is a matter for to fear in. God knows where he has gone to. She cannot take where he has been, where he can be. All night she weeps and wails as for Krishna, Krishna-Kanhaiya. She keeps it thinking where he has gone away. Where can he be? Why has he not turned it up so far? The heart in love will definitely do it.

Her bridal veils lay it flung upon the floor. The garlands of flowers too matter it not. Everything seems to be dropping from the hands. The buds bedecking the bed too have split their fragrance. The buds and the flowers all seem to be drooping and welting as happiness not,   grief takes over. The floral beds too seem to be mourning for wearing a pensive mood and reflection. Grief pervades in the atmosphere. Here the beauty of dreams and dreaming can be marked in. How the imagery is! How ornate and ornamental indeed. 

She waits for him so earnestly burning with the desire of waiting and meeting the lover. When will he come, the flute-player? When will she get her lover? When will she be able to see him, his face?

When will he come and comfort her, make her understand? She keeps waiting for earnestly with a yearning within.

The locks of his are beautiful enough just like the groves; the face so charming with the crown and the flute and these seem to be consoling the self, cooling the heart, taking to the thickets of the woods. How the lips with the flute! As a beloved waits for to see the face of her lover so is the case here. Radha is thirsty from her within to have a lustrous look of Krishna.

At Dawn as a poem is of Radha, searching with, where has he gone? She searches him all through the night opening the door of his manna repetitively and waiting for restlessly. How are the feelings which she has undergone? What has it gone over her heart there is none to feel it. A poem dealing with Krishnabhakti, Krishnaprem, it is about love for Krishna, the same Shyam-Ghanashyam.

What will it profit if we revile or hate we your fickleness? It is not going to make any difference to her beauty or even to my fate. Nothing can bring it out the reality. Just go we with the image of yours into our heart. There is definitely a divide in between the human and the divine and it cannot be bridged.

Without his loveliness, this life of hers is nothing. If he does not come, what will it happen? How will she live? How will she her time? Where does she lie in wandering? Why does she like wandering so much? What is more important is God’s loveliness and that too is not, then how to live a life? How to pass the days? Love is a lamp lying unfed with the golden oils. It has but to burn, burn and light. Radha asks him to come back, come back from his wild wandering into the tracts and domains unknown. Sweet Ghanashyam, where are you? Why do you not? Where do you lie in?

In the poem At Dawn one can hear the music of Shyam, Ghanashyam; one can Shyama Sangeet, why is Govinda blue-complexioned, why Shiva blue-necked and Vishnu so. Actually the words, Shyam, Ghanashyam lift us to the imagery of the blue, blue mountains and the clouds hanging by during the days of Shravana or a heart laden with grief and pensive reflection. These also create a melody of waiting, burning, burning with the desire of yearning. When the heart is heavy, one feels it so.

At Dusk as a poem is one of joy and happiness which but one feels when one’s period of waiting comes to an end and the transition in mood and spirit takes to another dimension of viewing with the scene of the time shifting so is the thing herein, Radha is happy with the coming of her Krishna Murari. Now it is time to dress and put on beautiful attire and jewelry. Now it is time to be ready. So, she is calling her companions to assist her in the make-up, the dress-up to be made and done. The lover has come and she will go away with. The things of a womanly heart have been painted nicely. The heart of a woman is almost the same. So golden is his face and appearance. So radiant is the image and picture. Whoever sees it, will like the charming and pleasant face no doubt. Who will not like to look such a divine face?

At Dusk 

Krishna Murari, my radiant lover

Cometh O comrades haste.

Bring me rich perfumes my limbs to cover.

Saffron and sandal paste.

Bring shining garments for my adorning,

Blue of the dusk and rose of the morning.

Gold of the flaming noon.

Bring me a breastband of gems that shimmer,

Making the lamps of the stars grow dimmer,

Fillets and fringes of pearls whose glimmer

Shameth the Shravan moon. 

Krishna Murari, my radiant lover

Cometh, O sisters spread

Buds and ripe blossoms his couch to cover,

Silver and vermeil red.

With flowering branches the doorways darken,

Is that his flute call? Sisters hearken!

Why tarrieth he so long?

O like a leaf doth my shy heart shiver,

O Like a wave do my faint limbs quiver.

Softly, softly, Jamuna river,

Sing thou our bridal  song. 

At Dusk when contrasted with At Dawn is a poem of Krishna Murari rather than Shyam, Ghanashyam and here after the waiting, there is the news of the coming of Krishna, Radha getting ready for just as a bride for the groom to come, Muraliwalle, Krishna Kanhaiya. One who is Krishna is Murari and Mohana. And if the manna is in Krishnabahkti, it will not dwell it anywhere. Here Radha acts like a dreamer in the theatre of spiritual love. When we read the picture, the picture and image of an Indian bride hangs before the eyes.

At Dusk is actually a shringaric song, a song of bridal dress-up and make-up as for the meeting with the lover whose arrival is expected and awaited so much so earnestly. Radha lies it happy as for the message, the news of his coming.

Krishna Murari is coming, the flute-player is coming is the theme of the poem and Radha keeps herself busy with decorating or dreaming of the arrival of her lover. She asks her comrades to dress her, to beautify her so that she may look like a bride. Radha asks the companions to sing the bridal song. She thinks of her meeting with the lover with so much glee and joviality.

She asks her companions to bring the perfume to smear her costumes with so that they appear scented. With saffron and sandal paste she will be decorated. The sandal paste designs and decorations will add to her beauty. Colourful, shiny, glowing and silken clothes she will wear with the assistance of the friends. Blue, golden and rose-coloured will match the auspicious moments. A breast band of gems will hang over the breast glimmering and lighting beautifully.

Here the picture of a bride, an Indian bride comes before the eyes, but God knows how the paths of life! Whatever be that, Radha is being readied with utmost beauty care and caress. Beauty touches, marks and decorations add to. Her companions are helping her in getting look like a dream girl, a beloved with an imaginative look which but every girl cherishes it during the wedding time. This is the time to mark gaiety and glee.

But what seconds, punctuates the make-up, dress-up most is the coming footsteps, the thud of the footfall telling of doubtfully he may be coming, may be coming. How will be the groom? How is the party as we often talk of Shiva’s party during Shivaratri? That question of Parvati’s mother is not here in it. There is something of Gandharva wedding in it. This is also a matter of reckoning. What more to say about bridal things, wedding matters, nuptial bonds, matrimonial relationships?

But God has some purpose to fulfill which Radha must understand it and if this be not, he will go away to finally gifting the flute to her to pipe by the banks of the Yamuna whenever pensive or full of memoirs for which the Lord too may have felt pity for. The tears of love, how to express it into words? The heart which loves can only say it.

The love of a milkmaid for the cowherd boy, Sri Krishna is a matter of the bhakti samudra which cannot be fathomed at one go. God is but Pyaar Ka Sagar, the Ocean of love. The song of his murali just keep you listening. Krishna with the flute casts a magic spell over us and we seem to be tuned to his melodies.

The Quest

My foolish love went seeking thee at dawn,

Crying — O wind where is Kanhaya gone? 

I questioned at noonrise the forest glade,

Rests my sweet lover in thy friendly shade?

 At dusk I pleaded with the dovegray tides,

O tell me where my Flute-player abides? 

Dumb were the waters, dumb the woods, the wind,

They knew not where my playfellow to find.

 I bowed my weeping face upon my palm,

Moaning — O where art thou, my Ghanashyam? 

Then, like a boat that rocks from keel to rafter,

My heart was shaken by thy hidden laughter. 

Then didst thou mock me with thy tender malice,

Like nectar bubbling from my own heart’s chalice.

Thou saidst, — O faithless one, self-slain with doubt,

Why seekest thou my loveliness without, 

And askest wind or wave or flowering dell

The secret that within thyself doth dwell? 

I am of thee, as thou of me, a part.

Look for me in the mirror of thy heart. 

The Quest as a poem is all about the romantic quest of a heart in love, about the spiritual quest of a lover in love and the quest is not only mythical, but symbolical too at the same time. We think within, whose quest is it? What is it love? How the feelings of it? Is it of Radha or a lover? Is Radha classical or pastoral? Is it romantic or spiritual, pastoral or classical? The thought and idea may be classical, but the theme is definitely pastoral and the feelings and emotions felt have been put to certain nomenclature and protocol. It is but restraint, sobriety and stoicism which but imparts a classical standpoint otherwise the emotions and feelings are almost the same. It is really foolish to be a lover and so is never understandable manna, the heart and mind of man. We do not know how do we love? What is this loving? Is Radha a living soul? Or, an imaginary one? What sort of love is it of Radha for Krishna?

Are the lovers fools? Why does the heart understand it not? How to say what it is love? How to describe the feelings of the heart? How to burn the lust? But can it be burnt? In classical love poetry, the heart matters it more. Here the lovers burn into the lamp of light. But in romantic love poetry, feelings and emotions are exchanged freely.

The Quest as a poem is a poem of Radha; Radha’s quest for Krishna, where the cowherd boy, the Blue Boy of Vrindavan fluting the flute, where is Krishna gone, Krishna-Kanhaiya, it is but the heart takes to it not, understands it not, what it to say about foolish love and foolish heart. Love-mad Radha and that too in the love of Krishna, what it to say to here, what it to make her understand as the manna understands it not. Radha lost in Krishna’s love is the main thing of the story.

Her foolish heart goes seeking for, searching the whereabouts, crying and weeping, sobbing and weeping, yearning for and hoping against hope, where has Krishna gone, Krishna-Kanhaiya and she keeps asking the wind swaying, passing by if it has her Krishna-Kanhaiya. She is at a loss as for where Krishna has gone.

She questions at moonrise the forest glade where lies he resting in the friendly shade of it, where the sweet lover of hers. Here the imagery is one of the forest tract, the arbor, the grove, the bower and the time that of the moonrise. Now the question is, how does the forest appear to be under the moonlit nights? How does it under the stars twinkling up above? How does it appear to be the moon rising?

At dusk she pleads with the tides asking to tell about the Flute-player, where he dwells. It is getting dark. Why has he not come? The heart thinks it in many ways. Where is he taking time? Where is he wandering? Where has he gone?

All are silent about. None is in the know of, all the animate and inanimate objects of the world, unable to say it, where Krishna has gone. Where the playmate of hers is? Where is he playing his play? Where is he doing his lila wrapped in Maya? The woods, the waters of the river and the winds, all are answerless with regard to his location.

She keeps weeping, placing the head upon her palm, shedding tears, looking it all tearfully with the red eyes, but nobody comes to feel her sadness, the sadness of love, what pains does it love give to. How lonely is a girl? You can feel it here. How lonely a woman in her life? The agonies of the heart seek it consolation, but who is there to console the aggrieved soul, the aggrieved heart?

On finding him not, when she goes to the tract and asks the woods, the trees, rocks and the waters about Krishna and his whereabouts, they say it not maintaining a strict silence. Her heart gets a jerk and jolt just like a boat beginning to start seconded by a laughter mocking her. How foolish is she that she is searching him all around! Does it behove her to be madly after! He is in the bhakti of the heart, in the devotion of the heart. He is within her and if she searches him, she will come to feel it. He may think what she is doing it about, how the state of her foolishness. Why does she think in such a way? Why does she continue to the leaf, the wind and the wave about his whereabouts? Does she not believe him? Can she not believe? It is not good to look everything with doubt and suspense which is but self-annihilating.

But the inward voice leads it to that he dwells within her heart and she must search for in her heart rather than searching elsewhere. To love him is to love spiritually. To love is to love from heart. It is better to look for the Love Divine in the mirror of one’s heart and here lies it the philosophy of love.

Songs of Radha as a poem is a series of reflections, a set of three poems enjoined together to celebrate Krishnite love which Radha feels it for Krishna. As the tunes change it so the notes and melodies with the dawn break and the twilight as do change human feelings and emotions. Love for Krishna forms a prominent aspect of all the three poems under our perusal and discussion, be it At Dawn, At Dusk or The Quest. But it is not only the fault of Radha, but of Krishna too who has won her heart in such way and has dislodged her at the end of the play. In Sagun Brahma there lies it the picture of the Nirguna Brahma too. But we doubt, can one love God in such a way? Can God be a lover? What is the matter? I do not know it.

When I consider how my light is spent,

Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

And that one Talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my Soul more bent

To serve therewith my Maker, and present

My true account, lest he returning chide;

“Doth God exact day-labour, light denied?”

  I fondly ask. But patience, to prevent

That murmur, soon replies, “God doth not need

Either man’s work or his own gifts; who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best. His state

Is Kingly. Thousands at his bidding speed

And post o’er Land and Ocean without rest:

They also serve who only stand and wait.”

       ------John Milton in When I consider how my light is spent