The Hindu Business Line : When verses come home to roost

"As the footfall of dew comes evening;/The raven wipes the smell of warm sun/From its wings; the world's noises die./And in the light of fireflies the manuscript/Prepares to weave the fables of night;/ Every bird is home, every river reached the ocean./Darkness remains; and time for Banalata Sen." These were the first lines one read at random picking up the 82-pages copy of Jibanananda Das: Collected Poems, at the Oxford Book Stall at Churchgate. Translated with an introduction by Chidananda Das Gupta, the lines got Das into some trouble with his family.

"Legend has it that some members of his family surrounded him once and demanded to know who this Banalata Sen of Natore was and why he, a married man, was carrying on with her. Whether the story is apocryphal or not, it illustrates issues germane to his times and to him. In daily life, he wore a mask of stony intractability that few could penetrate to get through to the man. Certainly, his was a life far removed from the Tagorean model of tranquil unity and comprehensive synthesis. It was much more typical of the contemporary period with its tensions, its secret core of pain, its disbelief and disillusion," writes Das Gupta.

The English translation is stylishly done with Das Gupta able to pass on to a non-Bengali reader, the subtle pulsations in the verse of Jibanananda. One has been dwelling on the book for over a week now, going back and forth and to be frank enjoyed it more than the English translation of Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore. In some parts, Tagore is a trifle mushy (and one has not gone beyond Gitanjali), while the imagery of Jibanananda is sure as the earth on which one stands. There are many things in common between Tagore, the Upanishads or J. Krishnamurthy.

Even Gandhi, an excellent writer, gets abstruse discussing God and Truth. He starts off saying God is Truth and ends with Truth is God. It has never made any sense. A reader initially gets carried away by the glint in their words and feels totally lost when finishing with them. The reader is where he is, stranded in a sort of in situ condition. In his essay, Chidananda refers to a comment by A.K. Ramanujan, the Kannada poet, "that Bengali poetry was obsessed with transcendence." Adds Chidananda, "Had he come across Ramanujan's comment, Jibanananda might have countered by asking of what use poetry would be if it was not concerned with transcendence, a prime element of Jibanananda Das's value-world." Probably, in modern India, Jibanananda may not be on par with the Marathi-English poet Arun Kolatkar with his Jejuri and Kala Ghoda. Arun Kolatkar plants his poetry in common incidents and never goes over-board with his thought and feelings. Most importantly, Kolatkar's verse carries the wonder and litheness of an early sunrise. One was surprised to learn that Rabindranath Tagore did not much like the poetry of Jibanananda though he admitted to his talent.

Jibanananda used to send his poems to Tagore and, perhaps was one of the first few poets to revolt against the Tagorean world. To be fair he admits, "It is with the help of pointers from Tagore that modern Bengali poetry has made a tiny start and its development will not culminate in the demolition of the fundamentals of Bengali literature or of Tagore." The Collection has some fetching lines and credit is also due to Chidananda.

In Days and Nights, the poet writes: "Yet, the cactus needle is bathed in gentle dew./Not a bird flies in the sky--/Laden with the wisdom of the day/ They have repaired to their nests." Again in Nine Swans: "I see nine swans in the water/Soft as the olive leaf, every morning./Three times three makes nine by logic/But these become nine by some sheer magic." There is a lot of Nature in Jibanananda, having spent his initial years in the greens of Barisal, now in Bangladesh. "Within the mornings noons rivers stars I have known/Lies all that there is to be known," the poet asserts in the poem Tonight. He came to Calcutta to study English literature at Presidency College and took his Masters from Calcutta University. He taught English in City College, Calcutta, and was dismissed "for having referred to the glories of the female bosom in one of his poems."

He jumped jobs, never being comfortable with any. "He is known to have been under considerable pressure from the family to find substantial employment instead of wasting his time on poetry that they, like the generality of readers of the time, found too obscure. Success eluded him all his life," remarks the translator.

Jibanananda was born in a Brahmo family. His father was a noted school teacher and his mother a poet, explaining the origin of the poet's genes. Born in 1899, the poet died in a tram accident in Calcutta in 1954. Today, one is not sure whether there will be many readers for the book, though it is worth buying at Rs 150.

Is there any spare time for poetry, a 30-minute break to think or read a few lines; to ponder without a squealing mobile and a computer with its many information sites snapping one to pieces; to spend on poetry some 5 per cent of the hours devoted to clicking computer keys or switching TV channels to be ever abreast with Breaking News and Cooking News. In Wasted Moments, the poet touches a high point: "Yet, having loved you/And then returned to myself,/I have learnt that my heart/Remains awake wherever I station it-- /In time told by the clock /Or in time eternal." Concluding the essay, the translator ends: "Jibanananda was not only a poet; he was nothing but a poet." One agrees.

P. Devarajan