CHAPTER OHE
T.S. ELIOT AND BISHM1J PET
Bishnu Dey has Bade himself knows as the Boat Hiot-conscions
poet among the moderns. This he has done by his expressed interest in
Eliot as poet and critic. Besides, he translated a collection of Eliot's
poeas wider the title 'Elioter Kabita*. He wrote about Eliot on diffe­
rent ocoassions drawing attention of the writers and readers of Bengal
to the important aspects of Eliot's poetry and critleisn. The poet him­
self told the present writer that he became deeply interested in Eliot
when he came accross a copy of the 'Criteron' along with the essay
"Tradition and the Individual talent"* To him it became a conviction
that Eliot had come to the present generation with a promise to release
the literature of the age from the shackles of the old and worn out
literary order. So he writes »
"He didened and at the same time deepend our vision of lite­
rature, which is creative work. In an odd way he did in literature
what
Marx had done in the broader sphere of social and political life".'12
'
The releasing force cane mainly through two channels : firstly,
the self-consciousness of the poet} and secondly, the traditionalism in
poetry. Bishnu Dey, therefore, writes :
"The most important debt of the Bengali poets to ELiot is in
this field of self-consciousness. Self consciousness has come to take a
2
concrete form in the ideal ef poets."
1. Bishnu Dey} Mr. Eliot among the Arjunas op.cit. p,96
2. Bishnu Day; Elioter Kabita (introduction), p.ll.
35
Through his poetry and poetics Eliot Bade the modern Bengali
poets self-conscious because he himself vas self-conscious as a poet.
"That is why" writes Bishnu Dey* We see In Eliot *s poetry the poetic and
oonscious expressions of our doubts and uncertainties, the agony of the
civilised mind due to the historic incompleteness of the modern life;
and the inoompreheaslvsness of life itself. For this reason, his poetry
and honest critism to improve the power of appreciation of poetry, make
those alien wayfarers in troubled lands and self searching poets of far
3
off countries obliged to him” . In the process of attaining this self
consciousness in poetry there emanates the force of release* The poet is
not only oonscious of his role in the present situation but he is now cons­
cious of his*past and future also* He is now conscious of his strength
and weakness as well. He is also oonscious of his destiny as a poet. Selfconsciousness, thus, frees him from the bondage of conventionalism, doubts
and uncertainties about himself*
The other force of release is the doctrine of traditionalism in
poetry as enanciated by Eliot. Eliot wants that a poet should know his
own tradition and then proceed to add his contribution to the existing
tradition. In doing so he will ultimately be able to find out his own
place in the creative sphere of literary activity, which is in the true
line of the growth of tradition. Bishnu Dey1 believed that the modern
Bengali poets could come out of the labyrinth of Rabindra-cult by a cons­
cious application of the theory. However, this should be done with nece­
ssary precautions. About Bishnu Dey*s traditionalism Prof. Analendu Bose,
therefore, writes s
3. Bishnu Dey s Elioter Kabita, p.ll.
34
"He learned from Eliot the need for affirming o ne’s heritage bat the
afflrmativn has to be achieved by o n e ’s own effort rather than received
as a magic spell from a maestro and the heritage of an filiot need not
necessarily be that of Bishnn Dey. From Eliot he has learnt the urgency
of treading a road of one’s own but the road has to be sought out made
and trodden by ones own self."4
The application of the doctrine of tradition in Bengali poetry
makes Bishnn Dey conscious about a few things which hether-to were not
clearly understood by the poets of Bengal. Firstly, he realised that
Rabindranath is a poet in whose poetry has entered a great deal of the
tradition of the Bengali poetry. let,there is little doubt that in his
poetry he has not taken every aspects of Bengali poetic tradition into
consideration. Some important 3ides of the Bengali literary tradition
«
such as the folk or the people’s literature is left out in his poetry.
Secondly, tradition is to be sought for not only in Rabindra­
nath alone but in the literature before and after him as well. One is to
move from the Vedas to the present time to know the tradition of Bengali
poetry.
Lastly, the search for tradition should not necessarily be con­
fined to one’s own nation. It may be extended te other nations and races
if there is any historical, cultural or any other form of relation with
them. Farther, the existing tradition anticipates future development; and
may help to read the future in the present. Thus, most of the literary
4. Amalendu Bose; Bishnu Dey, Hater H y Roots, p.54.
* This aspect of peoples tradition jar folk tradition is discussed by
D.P*
*tttfUpadhaya in ’Lokayata'% Ishutosh Ehattacharjee also made an
elaborate study of the subject, in his book ’Banglar Loka Sahitya1.
35
w o r k s w h i c h a r e i n a p rocess o f c r e a t i o n can b e t r a d i t i o n a l eren in the
f o r m a t i v e stage. T r a d i t i o n c a n b e c r e a t e d b y a c o n s c i o u s poet; a t l e a s t a
r e b u i l d i n g o f t r a d i t i o n in a n e w p e r s p e c t i v e i s p o s s i b l e . In o n e o f h i s
p o e m Bisfanu D e y w r i t e s s
"In o n e l i n e o f t h e present
Unite the three tines
• .
H o t in the conservation o n l y
Bat i n t h e c r e a t i o n
O f tradition in every moment."
( Kaler R a k h a l Sisbu; H a n R e k h e c h i
K a n a l Gandhar)
B i s h n u D e y l e a r n t f r o m E L iot th a t t h e s e a r c h f o r t r a d i t i o n is
n o t a m a t t e r o f a c a d e m i c i n t e r e s t only;
it i t s e l f i s a c r e a t i v e process.
O n e c a n f i n d h i m s e l f g r o w i n g a n d l e a r n i n g even w h e n h e h a s yet to p r e p a r e
a t r a c k for h i s o w n journey. In t h a t w a y E L iot i s a g r e a t h e l p
to
a
poet
w h o is p i o n e e r i n g a n e w m o v e m e n t . B i s h n u D e y is q u i c k t o r e a l i s e t h i s
f a c t and e x p l o r e * t e r r i t o r i e s h e i t h e r - t o u n f r e q u e n t e d b y a n y o t h e r Bengali
poets. S o ;v e s e e t h a t o n e a s p e c t o f B i s h n u D a y ' s t r a d i t i o n a l i s m is to
fi n d o u t t h e n a i n s t r e a m o f t h e p o e t i c t r a d i t i o n o f B e n g a l # and f o r that
r e a s o n h e i s r e a d y t o g o t o t h e e a r l i e s t p e r i o d o f o u r t r a d i t i o n a s well
a s to t h e l a t e s t a d d i t i o n s t o it. T h a t i s w h y , h e l o o k s at t h e m o d e r n i t y
o f Eliot ' s p o e t r y w i t h g r e a t i n t e r e s t .
56
II
Bishnu Dey thinks that a poet should not only be conscious of
the tradition but also be equally interested in realities of life around
hin. In the background there should be always the consciousness about
tradition but in the f ore^-ground the life in its vivid colours must be
present. Consciousness of the part is ^equally important as the conscious*
ness of the whole; and this can be seen in KLiot *8 poetry.
The modernity
in Eliot*s poetry, therefore, is not merely the depiction of the life as
such but an attempt to select such aspects of our life that have a bearing
in the creation of new tradition of poetry. Apart from this, Bishnu Dey
saw a situational parallelism between The Waste Land (along with the poems
of the 20s) and the social, economic and political conditions of Bengal
of the time. He saw the society as an artificial structure, worn out and
practically useless. Men were hollow inside and stuffed. While Eliot saw
Europe in the grip of spiritual sterility Bishnu Dey saw Bengal suffering
from Intellectual sterility. Besides, the common people were kept out of
picture and the society of the aristocrats was a structure without base.
Cut off from the simplicity of the villages and country-sides, the towns
and cities have turned into lifeless deserts. So,when Eliot says that the
desert is not far off, it is just outside the door step, he sounds like
a prophet. Eliot describes the modern maa as a 'hollow man* with his head
piece filled with straw. He is a akpe without form. This descrlotion of
* Cf. "Such couplets realisation of the 'part-consciousness'and its
perfect poetic expression.... is the contribution of Eliot in
poetry "Sahityer Bhaviswat" : B.Dey, pp.115-116.
37
modern man appears to be a real assessment to the m o d e m Bengali Doets.
I* the present age religious practices are observed simply because one has
developed the habit of observing them. Love has lost its significance and
broader meaning. It is also a habit, rather a biological exercise. The
great theme of love is, therefore, treated with contempt. In his early
poems Bishnu Dey shows little regard for love as a subject matter of poetry.
Love was a kind of 'conditional reflejl*. He tried to induce a casual tone
in his love poems. He wanted to reduce love to a day-to-day affair which
hardly needed any special treatment in poetry.
"Alaka tell# me
Have no fear in expressing your mind
Many trusted these ears.
Besides, I pluck flowers of love
After careful consideration."
(Puxrba Ranga; Srestha Eabita)
In a bold attempt to shatter the existing Victorian idea of love in Bengali
poetry, he looked at love as a habit. One loves because one has to. Hence ,
we see in his poems lines like these;
"It is a habit Lily, only a habit
That I come to your warm happy love - den."
(Conditioned Reflex; Srestha Kabita).
This casual tone invariably reminds a readengthe love scenes in The Waste
Land
3 8
"The tiae is nov propitious, as he guesses
The ae«d is ended, she is bored and tired.
Endeavours to engage her in caresses
Vhioh still are unreproved, if undesired.
Flushed and decided, he assaults at once
Exploring hands encounter no defence,
His vanity requires no response.
And makes a welcome of indifference."
There are other poems of Bishnu Dey where we see similar ideas;
"Alaka, hers you are,
Who can remain melancholy in your company?"
(Janmastand.; Srestha Kabita)
Or
"Suresh comes every evening I Presume |
As you say, the colour of your ,Sari,
introxicates me". (DO)
Or
"Have you read Lening's letters
Remark able in teresting".
(Do)
There is also description of day-to-day natters of fact life.
In
a business
like Banner the poet says :
* One may trace influence of Auden or Cummings in such examples; but
when we remember that Bishnu Dey*8 modernism has a bearing on tradition,
we believe that they are more Eliotemnthan Audenesque in character.
39
"After t h i s t h e r e a r e t e a a n d s a r d s
L e t n s p l a y t h e b r i d g e o r s a y flash,
W i t h exiteaant,
smokes,
slangs a n d laugh,
And then return to o u r flats T o r e m e m b e r a g a i n t h e a b d o m i n a l p a i n and cold
and cough,
N o i s e , congestion,
smoke and c h i l e b u r n i n g tough."
(Jannastand;
Do)
In t h e same m a n n e r h e w r i t e s e l s e w h e r i :
"We s upress d i v i d e n t a n d start p a n i c i n t h e market,
A n d b r i n g a w e l c o m e c h a n g e a f t e r d a y s o f inactivity.
Release
‘u n d e r s a l e * c a r e f u l l y -
T h e shar e h o l d e r s h u d d e r s in f e a r a n d r u n s a w a y
W e a r e f o u r d i r e c t o r s - Hari, Ram, S h y a n and 1".
(Do)
O n e f e e l s i n c l i n e d to c o m p a r e t h e s e l i n e s w i t h E l i o t * s L i n e s f r o m the
‘D i f f i c u l t i e s o f a Statesman*
j
"A r t h u r E d w a r d C y r i l P a r k e r is a p p o i n t e d
Telephone operator
At a s a l a r y o f o n e P o u n d - t e n a w e e k
Rising b y annual incre m e a t s o f f i v e shillings,
T w o p o u n d t e n a week, w i t h a b o n u s o f t h i r t y
S h i l l i n g s at Christmas,
And one weeks leave a year.”
40
Besides, there are lines front Bishnu Dey's poems which not for any parti­
cular reason, but for a general affinity ef taste, style and tone are
typically ELiotean in character. For example :
"We in our hones, ve also are a various crowd
We sing our part songs quietly
Or ve do not sing at all hub shake our
heads, heads by the
Threats and the cajoling
How and then sone of us perhaps gasp in despair
In this death in life or life in death broken
Futile."
(Water Ify Roots)
Though there is no direct reference,one remembers the lines from
"The Hollow Man"
"We are the Hollow Item
We are the Hollow Men
Leaning together
Head piece filled with straw Alas I
Whisper together.......*
Other lines from the poem Stater My Root s'bring in our mind images
The Waste Land. For example :
"Their beginning was in spring
In one sense of course, late winter
Or earlier still
Last year or the year before
from
41
Xear by year, in the long progress of Nature*s work or law". In the
"Waste Land” lliot speaks of the sterility of the modern life. He expre­
sses the barrenness of the modern life by the symbol of desert and cactus.
In the choruses from the Rock he writes s
"The desert is not remote in the southern toopics
The desert is not only around the corner,
The desert is squeezed in the tube train next to you
*
The desert is in the heart of your brother."
Bishnu Day, in the post war decadent social order of Bengal saw the same
sterility and barrenness. India, at that time was the greatest of the
colonies of Ehgland and as such the Bnglish desert was found naturally
extended to her colony. In fact, the intellectual minds of Bengal were
found to be very susceptible to changes in Bigland and Europe. It was
not surprising that in Bengal too the desert was found to be existing”
in the heart of your brothers." Awareness of the existence of desert was,
therefore, not surprising among the modern Bengali poets, For a Bengali
poet the use of desert as a symbol is more significant for there is not
a single desert in Bengal which is known in fact, as a land of rivers.
Sudhindranath used the desert symbol in his poetry. Bishnu Dey, instead
of using the desert symbol directly, generally used such symbol as the
•sand - banks* or the *sand-dunes*.
* Cf. "There are Waste Land all around
Not the fashionable western one, but really barren primitive
Death, in excess to what the hollow men could oollect/Beats
dram in a ghostly dance".
(Anritya Chaitanye : Itihase Tragic Ullase, By B.Dey).
42
"The barren sandy - banks in the noon light
*
Here no hony-moon takes place*"
(Chorabali; Chorabali)
or
"Ify heart is in a journey to the other side
Of the ,Baitarani*,
There is no boat nan and the eyes dazsle
By sandy land stretching to the horizon".
(Cressida, Srestha Kabita).
There can also be seen the cactus inage in Bishnu Day*a Poems :
"Dreams are only cactus land".
(Panoha mukh; Chorabali)
Or
"That
is
Heither
a strange country -
jfc Tillage Hor a
town,
But there are dead rivers,
Vith banks covered
by black
hard stony sounds,
And there are serpentine roads out - lined by
The best cactus, brought
by some
one
In large quantity from Arijona*"
(Ekjan Duswapna, Hanrekhechi Kanal Gandhar)
Eliot finds the Waste Land a place vith t
"A heap of broken images, where the sun beats
And the dead tree gives no shelter the cricket no
relief,
* In the synbol of'sand -bank'we see a protest against the romantic
tradition. Bishnu Dey believes that no ronantic attitude is
possible in the present condition of Bengal.
43
And the dry stone no sound of water,"
And Bishnu Dey diicovers :
"What a cursed country is this, a barren
Desert under the bitter sun beans
In the consciousness also there is an uncertain
Formless dedicated hate."
(Rabindranath; Snriti Satta Bhaviswat).
Or
"In the privacy of ay nind, I have a burnt field,
Which is n y own self
And there I go on ploughing and sowing.”
(Anio - to; Snriti Satta Bhavlswat)
There is little doubt that he considers the present day society as an
unproductive and sterile institution :
"But do you know why in the sand-bank of Sandwip
I search for the bee-queen in its dangerous void?
In this decayed country*s strile society in its crippled space,
Why I want to becoae rich by trading in heart?"
(Barang Janop Snriti Satta Bhaviswat)
In The Waste Land Eliot writes t
"April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, nixing
Henory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain
Winter kept us warn, covering
44
Earth in forgetfull snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers."
In the winter water is frosen into the iee and there is no free water
to stir the dull roots. In the absence of the life giving water it is
death or rather death in life that reigns supreme during the winter.
Bishnu Dey also finds in water a symbol of life, for life is incapable
of maintaining itself out of water.
"There is no rain and no storm
Ho water is there for the untimely seeds,
In the season of stealthy death
Boots beneath the soil get choked
And the plants feel death within their mind and
soul".
(Gach mbrl; Smrltl Satta Shariswat)
To the image of rain Eliot ascribes the hope for revival of life. Rain
brings water, the most essential condition of life. Bain brings life to
the barren dead land. Water is the cradle of life; and it contained in
it life for thousands of years till life could maintain itself out of
it, with of course, generous supply of water. In The Waste Land we see
Eliot in search of this life giving water :
"Hers is no water but only rock
Rook and no water and the sandy road
The road winding above among the mountains
Which are mountains of rock without water."
45
And again,
"Gang'a was sunken, and the linp leaves
Waited for rain, while the black clouds
Gather for distant*....... ."
Biahnu Dey also finds rain life-giving :
"Cloud gathered in the sky that day
In stern and thunder cane down the summer rain,
0; what a down pour
Like a straw of vigorous life."
(Baromashya; Namrekeohi K a m i Gandhar)
Or
"This is good
Let the new dark summer cloud soothe the dry fields
Of mother earth and those thousands of deserts
With its rain water."
(Aei vale; Snritl Satta Bhaviswat).
Bence, in this particular image we see not only the rain but also the
desert image associated with it; and it is not just a simple and conven­
tional rain image; it speaks of thousands of deserts which represent the
minds of men. Rain contains the nectar that will revive life in the dead
waste land - our civilisation of the present day. So,the poet waits for
the rain :
"I am also hungry, not only ay eyes
But also m y heart and soul feel the hunger,
The burnt soil lamenting
Brings into my nerves a dying famine"
(Amio to; Smriti Satta Bhaviswat).
46
In The Waste Land, the rain is yet to come; though there is the sound of
thunder. In Bishnm Dey*s poetry, however, we see rain coning down now
and then, and the land is not as sterile as that of the Waste Land :
"And that the rain - drops fell on the ground
Smelling sweet.
The drops fell on the mind waiting
For the rain so long”.
(Sarbodai Sukhada barada; Smriti Satta....)
Or
"Now and then comes the storm, the hall storm,
Rain falls; and complete consciousness returns
To the body of soothing dense shadow."
(Charak, Easter, Ider Puja; Smriti Satta....)
But there is no certainty of this rain. There may be a long period of
drought intervening the periods of occasional rains.
■All are barren land be it a village or
A town, Rain never visits these place
In time, Neither the soil nor the softl” *
(do)
And when there is no rain and therefore no water the land turns barren
and sterile;
"There is no civilisation here
The heart is a dried up lake
And intelligence a silted canal”.
(Smriti Satta Bhavlswat; Do)
47
But to Bishnu Dey, the rain is not the only source of water. There are
rivers flowing perennially the water from Belting ice of the glaciers.
There say not be always rain water but there are the rivers, the eternal
souroe of the vital foroe of life. The river reminds him of the eternal
flow of life. This flow is unceasing. The river nay change its course;
one place may become desert but another will be full of life. Life as a
whole is never in mortal danger of total annihilation s
"Tour flowing is endless, it seams, in ebb and flood
In this country and that, the unnecessary surge of waves
Breaking and building banks on shores in many a rally
and long maroh
In the desperate battle of the flood some times in an under
ground
Stream or in a still small lake
Some times in the self- contained grace of the quiet
silent garden
I live in your beloved
On the trees beside your own ghats
I bring to blossom flowers that are your in
Tour garden
Water my roots"
(Water my roots; Water my roots)
In Bishnu Dey*s poetry we come aocross some other images that take one
directly to H i o t * s poetry for reference. ELiot used Hyacinth image which
»
recalls to our mind a violent but sad death :
48
"Ion gave b o Hyacinth first a year ago
They called me Hyacinth girl,
let when ve cane back, late from the Hyacinth garden.
Tours arms full and your hair vet, I oould not
Speak and m y eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead."
(The Haste Land)
And Bishnu Dey writes :
"Who is that yownd hyacinth lying on the dust
Blood from his dark head turning the lane red?"
(Cassandra; Hamrekhechi Kanal Gandhar)
In the anoke image also there is a renarkable similarity between
the two poets :
"The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the
window panes
Licked its tongue into the c o m e r s of the evening
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains
Let fall upon its baok the shoot that falls
from Chimneys
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap.
And seeing that it was a soft October night
*
Curled once about the house and fell asleep."
(The love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock)
From the same poem again :
49
"Shall I say I bars gone at dusk through narrow streets
And watch the snoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men In shirt-sleeves, leaning out & f window".
(Do)
And Bishnu Sey writes t
"The clever fixt of the evening smoke
Goes np suffocating the place
Vith a sponge, smelling steam, in its hands."
^
(Janmastami; Purballekh)
In the Four Quartets Eliot used some images of his personal world.
One is a garden image, taken probably from the Alice in the wonder land
"Go said the bird, fo» the leaves are full of children
Hidden exitedly, containing laughter."
"■ —
---------------------------------->
(Burnt Mortis : Four quartet)
And Bishnu Day writes :
"Amongst the Jarul flower children play
Without a moment's rest."
(Surjyasta Belas; Snriti Satta)
In the Waste Land we see that Tireslas, the old, bisexual blind seer
is the witness of the sexual act between the typist girl and the 'Young
wen carbancular' :
"I Tireslas, though blind, throbbing between
two lives.
Old m m with wrinkled female bmeasts can see
(And I tireslas have fore suffered all
50
lhacted on this save divan or bed
I who have sat by the Thebes bellow the wall)
Tiresias of Bishnu Dey also sees the past, present and future with
seuae indifferent attitude;
"Both m y eyes are blind
Bat I see the past and the present,
The memories and all that is told
All in its nakedness"
(Tiresias; Stariti Satta Bhaviswat)
His Tiresias is the witness of the decayed society that keeps an inno­
cent face in the public;
"In the night of course, he returns hone
And alights from the car unaided
He has not suffered from gonorrhoea or syphilis as yet
So far as I know...*
What harm is there if he laughs every night in
a cabaret
Or goes to the cinema every ■rening?"
(Do)
Tiresias knows the history of all times - past, present and future.
He is best placed for recording such events which are connected with
sexual as well as spiritual crisis of mankind t
"I know the history, I tiresias,
Both my eyes are blind
And I see the darkness, the dusts of the past
51
And the vast waste of the future The silted pond, the silt of life,
Where Ban never domes to live.
There is no current flowing
And there is no fish
Old mind, sand and dead frogs roasting under the sun
I have seen you, you hare no way to escape".
(Tiresias; Smriti Satta Bhaviswat).
One can not but mark the use of the word 'fish* here. The fish symbol
sfends for fertility and hope for a new life. The idea, in all probability,
*
is taken from Eliot who used this fish- image in his poems.
Psychologists believe in dual or even
multiple personalities in one person. Eliot's protagonists often reveal
more than one personality in them. Critics believe that the 'you* and
•I* of Prmf-rock are nothing but the nanisfestation of different persona­
lities in Prufrock. One view is that the 'you* stands for self created
g
memories and imagination.
Elizabeth Drew, on the other hand holds that
the 'you' and 'I' of the soliloquy are the Impulses to murder and create
or "to be or not to be, concluding neither in suicide nor in the release
of the chosen action but in death in life of the abdication of the will...
The natural spontaneous rhythmical life is what the
of Prufrock yearns
?
for and will never achieve. All that is 'We' has done is to capitulate".
* Cf. Notes on The Waste Land 424.
6. Cf. T.S. Eliot; Northrop Stye, p.44.
7. T.S. Eliot : The Design of his poetry; Elizabeth Drew, pp.56-57.
52
This division of the self, which is very much different from the divi­
sion of the self into good and b«d, is seen also in his verse plays. In
Bishnu Day's poetry we see the awareness of such subtle division of the
self of an individual. Besides, Bishnu Dey believes that the principle
*
of dialectics opjlerates also in the self of an individual.
So he writes
"Whose heart is that? Tours or mine?
Sirdarias? Amradarias?
The two streams of the heart shudder^ in fear
In the grip of the sand- banks of life
on both sides.”
(Swandiper Char i Baohar Panohis).
But Bishnu Dey, at the same time believes in the ultimate unity of the
divided soul. They are the different manifestations of the one. There is
always a synthesis; the two often unite to create a new self;
"We are different, yourself and myself,
Tefc we are the same".
(Bahu Baraba 1946-47; Hamrekhechi-Kamal Gandhar).
Then there is also the idea of ‘Inferno*
* which Eliot takes from Dante.
Eliot's world is haunted by the persistent presence of a hell in life .
Cattaui, therefore, writes i
"The whole of puritan adds sauce had been concerned "
with death and the desire of the flesh; he had been obcessed by the
g
awareness of sin.
Eliot is always aware of the death in life. Ee quotes
Eulme to say that Man is essentially had in nature :
8. Cf. Poetry and belief in the works of Eliot; Kristian Smidt, p.ll.
9. T.S.Eliot; George Cattaui, p.46
* C f . Janaika MarxLa : Itihase Tragic Ullase.
55
"In the
light
tially limited
he
of those
and
a b s o l u t e rallies n a n h i m s e l f
imperfect.
He
is
endowed with
the
can occasionally accomplish acts which partake
nerer himself
b e p e r f e c t " . 1®
It
"Life y o u m a y erade,
leu
shall not
"How that
And
should
original
be
awareness
but
death you
shall not
that
essen­
sin,
perfection,
from this
deny the
we talk of
of
judged to
is
ELiot
while
he
can
writes
stranger"
(Choruses
Or
is
from the
Rock)
dying
I hare the
right
to
smile".
(Portrait of Lady)
In
the
Dirine
W&ste Land
Comedy
Eliot
says
"Under the
A
I had not
crowd
thought
sees t h e
lirlng
our
poem
life on
brown fog
of
a wintern
flowed orer London
death had undone
'Anwlsta*,
he
this
t
"Hot
earth
in
Echoing
from
the
dream,
but this
I have
seem
the
Thousands
of m y own
the hell
of
hell
crimes
losses
a p p a r i t i o n s .....................
are
crushed,
In geometrical
self has
suffered
10 , T.S.EUsfc , Seteeted Essays, p 430 .
seen
progression,
it
f r o m it;
in
is very much
hell,
sins,
How thousands of life minds
growing
presence
is written after
enough of
By habits
so m a n y
so m a n y . ”
from the
and
dnwn
bridge,
observed that
Njy r e t u r n
Where
«
*
Bishnu D e y is also aware of
In his
dead walking
life.
a part
of
54
I hare gone to the hell with the smell of haven
Still on me,
t
And sniffed the snell of decomposed food
of vultures and jackals
We have many picture of the Hell
*
And this is written after n y return from there".
(Amwista)
On many occasion he has seen the hell. Like the desert it is every where,
if one can recognise it;
"In the cold darkness of the hell
Among the pale looking frost,
I passed ny time, many days, many years,
In different walk of m y heart.....
This cremation ghat has no limit,
This is not a b l a z U g l y lighted cremation ghat
by the bank of a river*
The sky has no speck of light here In the terrible darkness of sin
March the wolves in a procession".
(Bahu baraba 1946-47 s Hamrekhechi Kamal).
The picture of the decaying middle class appears to be hopeless to him.
There is for him no hope of a resurrection. There is not even a 'pargetorio* from which the sinners will come out clean from their sins :
* The sin mentioned here is, however, not the original sin of man. The
expression 'enough of sins* itself shows that this is used to mean
the sinful acts which people meet in ordinary life.
55
"It seems There is no hope, no life, in this hell,....
There is epidemic all the tine
There, in the rainless sky sounds of cries are
Monotoiutif> does not touch the heart,
There the tear is dead, for there is no hope or
So little is the hope that there is no despair."
(Snriti Satta Bharisvat;)Do.
There is no fire to purge the sin in this hell because}
"We are all in the hell
Without the knowledge that we are always there."
(Smriti Satta Shariswat)
He, therefore, wants the fire of hell to blase and raise us from the
half-conscious and un-consoious slumber of hell in life. This way it may
be possible for nan to come out of the dinly lighted hell to the clear
sun light of the earth :
"let,all these are poor un-consoious or
Half-conscious cartoon picture of the hell
A distortion of the death itself,
0| the death in life
Burn us with the fire of hell, of disatisfaction....
Let the twilight of the life and death be lighted."
Do
let,Bishnu Day is basically not a pessimist. He is hopeful of a new life,
though it is not the hope of reriral through religious faith. He has an
56
u n f l i n c h i n g f a i t h in t h e h u n a n i t y o f n a n a n d i n the i m m o r t a l i t y o f t h e great
f l o w o f life.
Ill
In n a t t e r s o f style a n d t e c h n i q u e al s o B i s h n u D e y h a s mu c h in
common w i t h E liot. I n p o e t r y E l i o t h a s c r e a t e d a . s t y l e o f h i s own.
About
B i s h n u B e y ' s s tyle A n a l e n d u B o s e w r i t e s i
9 ............ a c e r t a i n q u a l i t y o f s u r p r i s e ...... J u x t a - posi t i o n
o f i m a g e r y d e r i v e d e c l e c t i c a l l y f r o * v a r i o u s sources, t h e u s e o f hard,
c o n c e n t r a t e d a n d t h e r e f o r e - p r i c i s e images;
l i n k e d nuances;
t h e sequence
o f t h e b e a u t i f u l a n d t h e l o v e l y t h e c o n v e n t i o n a l l y p r e t t y and r u d e l y
realistic, m o c k i n g c o a m e n t s i n p a renthesis;
sudden allusions to w e l l
k n o w n l i n e s a n d p h r a s e s c h i e f l y f r o * T a g o r e . " ^ It appears, a s if the
critic is s p e a k i n g o f Eliot a n d n o t o f B i s h n u Dey. In this, o n e a l m o s t
h e a r s a n a p p r e c i a t i o n o f E l i o t ' s style a n d t e c h n i q u e . T h e v e r s e farm
d e v e l o p e d b y E l iot i s n o t a n I m p r o v e m e n t u p o n a n y o f t h e existing f o r m
o r style. A b o u t t h i s H e l e n G a r d n e r w r i t e s :
"It i s a t o n c e a p p a r e n t t h a t it is n o t a n a t t e m p t to e m p l o y a
t r a d i t i o n a l v e r s e f o r * m o r e f l e x i b l y , b y b r i n g i n g it n e a r e r to the
r h y t h m s o f c o n t e m p o r a r y speech. M r . E l iot h a s a b a n d o n e d the m ethod of
p u t t i n g n e w c o n t e n t into t h e o l d v e r s e f o r m s f o r t h e o p p o s i t e method
o f finding what is th e verse f o r * for the n e w content."
11. A m a l e n d u Bose; T . S . Eliot, a symposium, p . 228
12. H e l e n Gardner; T h e a r t o f T . S . Eliot, p.24.
12
57
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58
Besides this eonversationalism there is also the music of poetry. Eliot
finds it mainly in the words and the meaning. "The music of poetry is the
harmony of the ordered significances of words. It is not something that
exists apart from meaning."1*5
And from where the music of the word come? "The music of a
word is, so to speak, at a point of intersection; it arises from its rela­
tion first to the words immediately preceding and following it, and inde­
finitely to the rest of its context, and from another relation, that
of
its immediate meaning in that context to all other meanings which it has
in other context, to its greater or less wealth of association."
16
It is not the metre or rhyme where one should look for the
music. It is the musical phrases that contain music within then.
"Ho prosodic system ever invented can teach one to write good
English verse. It is, as Mr. Pound has so often remarked, the musical
phrase that natters."
17
The music of poetry, thus, can be found in the musical phrases
and in the ordered significances of words. Biabnu Dey did not suffer, much
difficulty to become musical that way, because the Bengali language is
itself musical. But music is also there in the recurrent use of themes
and in Bishnu Day's poetry we see the presence of such music.
"With Bishnu Dey the slant is different; his is the way of
dialectics;
'the poet knows, the artists being lovers they know the
agony of dialectics*. (The Dialectics of words and metre : Anwista);
music is conceived thus*the contrapuntal finds fulfilment through an
15. T.S.Eliot; On poetry and Poets, p.29.
ic. Tbia,ppsa-55.
IT» T«£» ELiol { Use of poetry and-Use of criticism. , pp 3 8 —39 .
59
exceeding chord/Point and counter point blend in a firm 'rig* of diapason,"
(in Art Rather than in life, Itihase tragic Ullase); the music appears in
the need to portray discord or dialectics. The similarity here is rather
with Eliot who in his Essay *The Music of Poetry* says ‘The use of recur­
rent themes is as natural to poetry as to music. There are possibilities
of transitions in a poem comparable to the different movements of a sym­
phony or a quartet, there are poeibilities of contrapuntal arrangement
1 ft
of subject matter."
Inspite of his genuine desire to use in his poetry the language
people use in their speech, Bishnu Dey shows a tendency to become lyrical.
His irresistable inclination towards music nay be the cause for this.
Another reason is that the normal speech of a Bengalee has a touch of
lyrio in it. However, Bishnu Dey is careful not to fall a victim to the
conventional language of the Bengali poetry. For this, he often brings
contrasting words and ideas side by side, and speeches in prose-order at
the end of a lyrical stanza and vice-versa :
For example :
"The evening brings its clear silent wings down
On the bloodless face of the city appears
A pale flash of emotion
In the crowded theatre-hall lurks the blue
Siade of darkness.
Lights are shaded, In the silence we both are calm and
quiet.... .
I know, I know that is why the doors of the
Corporation are shut."
(Sapta padi; Sreatha Kabita)
18. Sutapa Bhattaoharjee; Music is Dialectical; Water My Root, p.51.
60
Sometimes he does the reverse by following up unromantic and matter-offact descriptions by beautiful lyrical lines s
"Among the countless processions
Of aimless padestrians, trams, buses and cars,
In the rotten air full of smells from sweat
And foul smelling breaths,
Descends evening with eyes frill of slumber
Her golden hair - do dishavelled
In the utterly crowded city
Of the city of dreams".
(Janmastand; Sreatha Kabita)
One finds similar technique in ELiot*s poetry. The juxtaposition of con­
trasting iddas and expressions are common in KLiot*s poetry. However, in
E l i A * s poetry the difficult and precarious balance between the conversa­
tional and the musical poetry is always maintained. Once in The Music of
Peetry he said that the speech-form in the poetry was different from r.hat
of the prose. In poetry the conversationalism must be of the kind that a
listener or a reader oould say;
*That is how I should talk if I could talk
poetry*. In such case only we see a happy union of music with natural
speech. In Bishnu Dey*s poetry, though one finds a genuine attempt to be
conversational, one feelha that he is essentially a poet of verse. There
is, however, no real contradiction*in this, so far as Bishnu Dey is con­
cerned. Bishnu Dey believes that speech ia the verse-form is the natural
language of people. So he writes : "For just as poetry was the fundamen­
tal and natural medium of expression in the simple primitive society, so
61
prose has become the dominant vehicle of communication in the class society
19
of the contemporary capitalistic phase".
It can be seen that Bishnu Dey gradually shifts towards the
music of sound rather than to that of meaning. Occasionally, however, he
follows Eliot’s practice of breaking a word into two and distributing it
between two lines to achieve greater emphasis or stress on the last w o rd
of the line :
"Have
you read Lenin’s letters?
Remark able interesting"
(Janmastand j Srestha Kablta)
Or,
"In the known hours, there comes
The swift crowd of organised
m
Ghost ly hours".
(Janmastami; do)
Many lines from Eliot can be quoted to illustrate such technique :
"In the place of Mrs.Phlaces, at Professor Ghanning
Cheatas"
(Mr. Apallinax)
Or, .
"Over
even
a 'eery good dinner, but sudden Illumination"
. (Dry Salvages; Four Quartets)
Or,
"and I Coqbeptrated a y attention with careful subtlity"
(hysteria)
19. Bishaa D a y ’s letter to S.Mukhopadhya; Water tMy* Roots, op.ait. p.10.
62
Or,
"of drouth,
spitting f r o m t h e m o u t h t h e w i t h e r e d
app le seed".
(Ash U e d n e s s Day)
I t m a y b e n o t e d h e r e t h a t E l i o t * s e a r l y p o e m s a c c o m m o d a t e n e w i d eas and
n e w m o d e o f s p e e c h in r e g u l a r l y r h y m i n g Terse.
F o r exa m p l e s
"Let u s g o t h e n y o u a n d I
W h e n t h e ev e n i n g i s s p a r e a d o u t a g a i n s t t h e s k y ”
(Prufrock)
Or,
"Oh I do n o t a s k
*wfaat is it?*
L e t us g o a n d make o u r Tisit.
I n t h e r o o m w o m e n com e a n d go
Talk i n g of Michelangelo.
(Do)
Or,
"Defunctire music under
P a s s e d se a w a r d w i t h t h e p a s s i n g b e l l
Slowly; t h e G o d H a r c u l e s
/
H a d l e f t him, t h a t h a d l o w e d h i m well".
(Burbank)
Or,
"Obserrlng tha t hysteria
Might easily be misunderstood
Mr. T u r n e r i n t i m a t e s
It d o e s t h e h o u s e n o sort o f g ood."
(S w e e n y firaat)
65
Such fine example may oonyinoe Bishny Dey that the normal speech of the
day also can be accommodated in rhyming Terse and if some oare is taken
*
then some sort of rigidity may even be maintained in respect of the metre
too* As a reader of the Bengali poetry is ordinarily shocked by the absence
of rhyme in poetry, Bishnu Dey preferred to retain this and introduce the
conversational language within the frame work of rhyme scheme* One must
admit that he shows |keat skill in this :
"I lore yon, do you know?
lour brown eyes, though you are a Bengalee,
Are disturbing me from the Wednesday reapeatedly,
What people say love, do you accept?
Do you attract me through your eyes knowing the fact?
(Purbaranga, Garhastasramj Sreatha Kabita).
Or,
"After this there are tea and cards
Let us play the bridge or say flash,
With exitement, smokes, slangs and laugh
and them return to our flats
To remember again the abdominal pain and cold and cough,
Noise congestion smoke and chile burning tough."
(Jannastami, Do)
There can be seen no real change in Bishnu Dey*s out look regarding this
matter in his later poems, though occasionally he experiments with varia­
tions. In Eliotfs poetry we see a gradual development and his Four Quartets’
is different from his earlier poetry not only from the point of view of
spiritual development but also from the point of style and technique.
64
A b o u t t h e P o u r Quartets, H e l e n G a r d n e r w r i t e s :
" W hen w e r e a d Fo u r Q u a r t e t s a t t e n t i v e t o t h i s
*musie of m e a n i n g
w h i c h ar i s e s a t t h e P o i n t o f I n t e r s e c t i o n * , w h e r e w o r d r e l a t e s to word,
p h r a s e t o p h r a s e a n d i n a g e t o image, w e r e a l i s e t h a t t h o u g h M r . E l i o t has
g i v e n to o t h e r p o e t s a f o n t t h e y c a n u s e f o r t h e i r o w n p u r p o s e s and t h o u g h
h i s t r e a t m e n t o f t h e i m a g e a n d w o r d m a y suggest t o h i s s u c cessors m e t h o d s
o f d e v e l o p i n g p o e t i c themes, -The *Pour Q u a r tets* i s u n i q u e
and
essentially
inimitable. I n it t h e f o r m is t h e p e r f e c t e x p r e s s i o n o f the subject,
so
m u c h so t h a t o n e o a n h a r d l y i n t h e end d i s t i n g u i s h the subject f r o m the
_
.20
form."
B i s h n u D e y h a s a e a r f o r m u s i c a n d o n e m a y e xpect h i m to c r e a t e
*
a k i n d o f m u s i c l i k e t h a t o f t h e m u s i c of m e a n i n g o f t h e P o u r Quartets,
in h i s o w n poetry. But w e see t h a t t h e r e i s n o s u c h r e m a r k a b l e c h a n g e in
h i s poetry. H i s p o e m s o f the s i x t i e s and t h e s e v e n t e e s a r e n o t v e r y m u c h
d i f f e r e n t f r o m h i s e a r l i e r poe t r y . V e see the same p a t t e r n o f r h y m e in his
l a t e r poems;
"I r e t u r n t o t h e o l d l o v e l y c o t t a g e known,
B y t h e side o f t h e h i l l o c k s three,
M a y b e t h o s e two s nipes e v e n n o w d a n o e i n t h e d a w n
I n t h e s hoal a n d t h e n start t w i t t i n g in a spree".
(Abar eseehi;
Smriti S a t t a B h a v i s w a t ) .
20. H. Gardner; T h e Art o f T . S . Eliot, p.55.
65
The revisit of the old place, though it reminds us of the hour of coming
of the Four Quartets, is not actually so. However, there may be one simi­
larity, the old form is not abandoned and the poet returns to it again and
again. In his poems we pven see the use of such conventional rhyming as
*
that of the use of *
*nisir* (night) to rhyme it with *sisirf (dew drops).
Another thing that
our attention in this connection, is
the use of allusions by the sain poet. He know that Eliot uses allusions
in his poems very frequently. Bishnu Dey is also very fond of using allu­
sions in his poems. Rabindranath considered this as one of the bad habits
X
of Bishnu Dey.
effect that
However, Bishnu Dey used allusions in his poetry to get the
is provoked by the memory and associations of the allusions
in the mind of a reader. About the significance of the use of allusions
especially from the classics and important poets and writers, Helen Gardner
writes :
"Some thing read staffs in the memory, provokes a train of thought, stimu­
lates a rhythm. Sometimes this influence is so compelling that the poet
21
has to imitate and finds to some extent his own voioe through anothers".
Eliot has used the method extensively in his poetry. He makes
this type of conscious use of another*s writings as a part of his new
technique and no one calls it imitation or borrowing. Examples are so
many that they hardly require any citation. Besides, there are also epi­
g r a p h and subtitles from classical writings and other masters of the
past, used at the beginning of a poem in order to add more meaning to the
title and the peem.
* Cf. Samudrer Pratibade, Smriti Satta Bhavlswat.
* Gf. Rabindranath*s letters to B.Bose, Deshf Literature Issue 1581.
21. Helen Gardnerj The Art of T.S. Eliot, p.69.
66
Ib Bishnu Dey*s poetry we find the similar use of literary
allusions. For example s
"We sought comfort in a simile
0 use ba Ashwasya Medhasya Siba".
(Bahubaraba; Namrekhechi Kamal Gandhar).
Or,
"Let there be one, the oneness of many,
Sehakamayata Dvitiya Se Atma Jayeteti".
(Do)
He also takes lines from Kalidasa which hare in the mind of a Bengalee
reader double association of memories and images because of the use
of
the lines by the Bengali novelist BankLachandra in his novel Kapal Kundala.
■Very near yet far off indistinct
Duradayaschakra nivasya tanni".
(Frachanna Swadesh; Namrekhechi Kamal....)
Again, from a patriotic song :
"Consider your country
•Sujala sufala this nalayn sitalas*
h(y mother country".
(Sariti Satta Bhaviswat; Do)
Other prose writings of importance were also not excluded;
"Einpire is a bubble, Sarthaka Janama Mage
Hustams whims are queer" Buro saliker ghare roa."
(Tiresias; Namrekhechi Kamal Gandhar)
Another from a patriotic poet of Bengal :
"After the journey I have arrived
At your country Danadhanye Puspe Vara
67
loader ai Basundhara"
(Anwlsta)
But nost of his quotations are from Rabindranath, whose poetry,Bishnu
Day genuinely believes,to be very near to the heart of a reader of Bengali
poetry. Allusions to Rabindranath*s poetry serves double purposes; on the
one hand it creates an immediate impulse in the mind of the reader, bring­
ing memories and associations in a train starting from Rabindranath and
going back to the sources from which Rabindranath himself drew, and on the
other maintains a contact with the elder poet and establishes a link with
the
tradition. Quotations from and allusions to Rabindranath are innu­
merable and need no illustrations. It can be seen that he uses lines and
words from Rabindranath in a way that these become one with his own poetry.
Besides, he also contrasts Rabindranath*s lines with those of his own,
placing them side by side. This is done to achieve some sort of juxtaposi­
tion of contrasting ideas which we often see in ELiot. There are also
quotations from classics and other great works, at the beginning of a poem,
which reminds one°fELiot*s partiality for such quotations serving as epigraph
and subtitles. No other Bengali poet is found so much ae muoh fond of
using the epigraphs, as Bishnu Dey is found to be. These epigraphs are
collected from a very wide variety 6f literary works ranging from the
classics Sanskrit to the latest foreign literature. Another point of in­
terest is the use of symbols and images by Bishnu Dey in a manner that
reminds one of Eliot*s use of symbols and images in poetry. About ELiot*s
use of symbols and images in poetry
Sean Lucy writes :
68
"Eliot has helped to introduce or to reintroduce in an invi­
gorated form into Ehglish literary tradition four important poetic modes
or methods. The method of symbolism working by implication and mood; the
method of myth, which is closely allied to symbolism; the method of pure
realism, which works by direct reporting combined with acute sensibility
and lastly the method of parallel and contrast, which works by simul­
taneous evocation and juxtaposition of moods or situations which are at
once like and unlike in order to sharpen effects by ironic comparison."
22
We see almost all these characteristics in Bishnu Dey*s poetry,
particularly the use ef the symbols. Like Eliot, he often associates the
symbols with myths. River is one of the symbols he frequently uses. The
river generally stands for the synthesis of a dialectic that exists
between the two opposing banks. Generally river banks are considered to be
opposites of one another when one creates the other destroys. The river
in its stream of water unites the opposing banks. Bishnu Dey, therefore,
writes :
■The symbol is certainly there in river
Both the banks are eloquent in one stream
Leaving the white frost behind it moves
Towards the salty blue
Stretching out in sands silts and tides
Calling every port and leaving behind
Sand - banks here and there
Here is a music of dialectics."
(Anwista; Anwista)
22. Sean Lucy; T.S. Eliot and the Idea of Tradition, p.162.
69
The river unites not only the banks, but in course of its flow towards
the sea it touches everything and carries off with it all the opposites
in single stream to the end.
"It is a different life transformed into different form
let,essentially the same
Connected with one another as the river,
In seperation as well as in union".
v
(Vadir utsa jdi jana thake; Mamrekhechi....)
On the other hand the river is not only a symbol of synthesis; it is
also the symbol of life- the flew of life that is endless. He differs
from Eliot in this respect. If water is the symbol of life then there is
not only the rain water but also the rivers vhioh have glaciers and
melting ice as their perennial sources. Rivers, therefore, represent a
steady flow of life. It is independent of the vagary or caprice of weather
which makes the availability of the water uncertain. In other words the
drought and the barrenness are regional and temporary in nature. Life as
an entity does not depend totally on the rain water. Thus sterility or
decadence in society or civilization is a temporary phenomenon. It is
also limited by time and place. When one knows that rivers are there,
one is not unnecessarily concerned about the periodical or occasional
droughts. He is assured and he is even hopeful. In his peem Jal Dao, we
see that the poet is hopeful that the river will water the roots of life
and life in exchange will give the earth flowers and fruits.
Another symbol Bishnu Dey uses is the symbol of darkness.
70
Darkness to Bishnu Dey, is not a void or blank space.
It is not also
the darkness of hell. Once, however, he thought darkness as hellish but
even then he had doubts in his Mind.
"I know many dark crematorium grounds
There is darkness in m y heart residing for nany years,
I have heard the anisic of the void, nany nights..... .
But do not know this terrible vast burnt darkness".
(Bahubaraba 1846-47; Namrekhechi Kanal...)
In general, however, he is fond of darkness. It is nothing but the other
side of light itself;
"Wight is the tine of his birth
He is therefore fearless in the night
Night is like his nother
He was born at the moment when life and death had met,
That is what makes him so confindent.”
(Se o Ora, Snriti Satta Bhavi swat)
In the darkness of night the conscious part of our mind s p r e a A out its
tendrils feeling those things which in the light can not be felt. Light
obstructs our feelings, but darkness gives it freedom;
"Day is fearsome
Only night has free moments
In the darkness the conscious opens its eyes
There in the field is slumber, in the blue sky,
* C f . "Waste and Void
Waste and Void, And darkness was upon the face of the deep."
The Choruses from "The Bock", Part VII.
71
Where times fiesta goes on and the children
Play with sleep."
(Ratri Stomang Mo Jigushe; Smriti.... )
In the light as veil as in the darkness, in the morning and in the even­
ing, he observes the same oppositions and union which exist between the
man and women* Here is another dialectics and the process goes on in an
unending cycle.
"In nature light and darkness remain united
Moving in an unending cycle
Beyond the known and the unknown
As the man and woman are united
Both are infact one".
(Bahubaraba; Nan rekhechi Kamal Gandhar)
Or is it the same eternal cycle of life and death? For the poet finds in
it the same eternity and movement, as he finds in the cycle of life:
"Traversing the great distance of life and death
From the moment of the oldest darkness
He calls the morning and the evening,
Passing the day and the night year after year
He takes his place in the enlightened sphre
Of ancient patience."
(Se 0 Ora; Smriti Satta Bhaviswat)
From this he takes his symbol of morning and the evening, the oppoait4t», moving one after another from time unknown to the time that will
never perhaps be known. Though the chain of darkness is never really
72
broken by the interfering morning or the evening, it is cut into pieces
or rather punctuated by the light of the morning and the evening. To him
darkness is the mysterious span of a creative sp'here. Sun is the reality
that comes in the morning to supress the mystery of life till in the even­
ing the darkness re-essarts itself;
"Darkness is wanted
Darkness is to be consumed in this long life.
By cutting it into pieoes by the evening and
the morning The swords of Sunlight".
(Charak, Easter, Idor Roja; Smriti.... )
In the present condition of life men does not always see the creative
darkness, the mysterious life containing darkness. They even miss the
mystery of the dawn and the twilight. What they always see is the blazing
sun, the reality which is every where - infront of them, at their back,
above them and below them;
"We do not have the morning or the evening
We have only the hope........
We hare the sun every where
In front of us at our back........... "
(Lucia Prakrit! 0 Amra; Smriti Satta..... )
He also took ligandary figures like Wafhus*,
'Kangsa* or 'Bibhisan1 as
symbols representing classes and traits in our society. But they are used
topically and with limited meaning. Personal symbols, concrete or nubulous, used by the poet as vehicles of his own ideas in germination or in
75
growth are few 1m number. But they are used most effectively and exten­
sively. In his case, the use of symbols of the inner most world of the poet
is restricted by a self imposed responsibility as a poet of the people.
Prom the beginning his aim was to rivitalise the people*s poetry which was
left in disregard and disuse by the educated classes of our country. That
is why, inspite of his interest in Eliot he never could effort to become
a tru^ly symbolist or imagist in his poetry.
There are also parallel and contrast in Bishnu Dey*s poetry,
drawn in a way to have the effect of sudden shock^surprise. In the first
place he balances an emotional expression witji a rudely realistic speech
or expression placed side by side. For example :
"The twilight brought its wings down
of silence clean,
In the face of city appeared flashes of emotion
Devoid of colours.
The crowded auditorium is shrouded by a blue light
Coming from darkness,
Lights are shaded with covers
In the silence both are motionless
I know, I know the corporation has its doors
closed for that reason".
(Sapta Padi; Sreasts Kabftta)
Or,
"What have you done, 0 Togi i=
Burning him with your fire of rage
74
You bars Bade a feast of him through out the world
The air is full of his appetising smell
But Suresh only drinks glucose".
(Kathakatha; Chorabali)
Again, "Music of twenty two spring in a train
Throbs in ny heart
Like a taxi waiting at the door."
(Pratham Parts Chorabali)
Another speciality of Bishnu Dey is the use of classic and modern allu-
IpiUt
ssions side,to make this appear parodioal and ridiculous :
"Ulysses has no knowledge of Mohan Began
In the island for the braves
Pull of flowery groves
Mo one knows what fun is missed by Hector"
(Janmastamij Sresta Kabita)
Some times he brings contrasting pictures side by side or draws a kind
of morbid simile, exposing the inherent irony of our present day situa­
tion s
"Small pieces of clouds in train
Stand still like thousand white cows
And not follow the music of any piper,
Like Gopinies without self control
Move the pale clouds
75
As if a bagger woman hungry in Calcutta street,/Rushes for the
food offered by a charitable organisation,/At the heels of her begger
husband".
(Sandhya Ratrir Bhor; Namrekhechi Kamal......)
IV
All these are, however, semblance of a surface relation between
Eliot and Bishnu Dey as poets. In a sense, those are of little importance
or significance so far as a poet's relation with another is concerned.
Prof. Aaalendu Bose aptly remarks :
"There were several other things, mostly details of the arte­
fact, that Bishnu Dey learnt from ELiot but it was the basic concepts
that set him firmly on his own road to poetic self fulfilment;"
25
Eliot's influence can be traced deep inside the poetry of Bishnu
Dey. When the question of influence comes,one remembers Eliot's observa­
tion in this connection.
"Immature poets imitate, mature poets steal, bad poets deface
what they take, and good poets make it into some thing better or atleast
something different. The good poet welds his theft into whole of feelings
which is unique, utterly different from that from which it was torn; the
bad poet throws into something which has no cohesion."
24
When we know
that influence may find expression in something "unique"/'utterly diffe­
rent from that from which it was torn", our search naturally extends
beyond the scope of obvious similarities.
25. Amalendu Bose; Water Ify Roots, p.55.
24. T.3.ELiot; The Sacred Wood, p.125.
76
About one aspect of T.S. Eliot*s influence on Bengali poetry
Bishnu Dey writes s "The impersonal outlook is a contribution of Eliot
to the world of poetry. If this contribution is ignored then the source
25
of the freedom of poetry after Eliot can not be understood.”
Agains
he observes t "The most important debt of the Bengali poets to Eliot is
in this realm of self.consciousness."
26
Prof. Analendu Bose finds Bishnu Dey self conscious as a poet;
"Bishnu Dey*s self-consciousness as far as I can see, has moved steadily
and constantly in the direction of this self-awareness, of a knowledge
of his true poetic self."
27
So,according to Bishnu Dey, two major con­
tribution of Eliot to the modern Bengali poetry are : a) self-conscious­
ness, and b) impersonality in poetry. As we have already noted, Bishnu
Dey is a self-conscious poet. He is conscious about the role of a poet
in society and in literature. He is also conscious of the tradition of
poetry. He has a perspective that includes the
past, present and the
future in one comprehensive view. He has seen the poet as a seer, philo­
sopher, legislator, disinterested observer, reporter and a catalytic
agent. All these make him undoubtedly a self-conscious poet. But these
are not all. Bishnu Dey is a marxist and a humanist. As a marxist, he
knows that it is not enough to Interpret the past and remain a passive
viewer of the present with a hope for the best in the future. A marxist
must always endeavour to change the world to realise the social and
economic justice for all. As a humanist,he wants the best possible expre­
ssion of human qualities in a repression - free social and economic
25. Bishnu Dey; Sahityer Bhaviswat, pp. 115-116.
26. Bishnu Dey; Elioter Kabita, p.ll.
27. A. Bose; Bishnu Dey, Water ){y Roots, p.32.
77
order. He wants all flowers to bloom; all opposites and contrasts to
flourish, so that ultimately tlMfc the best can be aohieved in a synthesis.
This is of course a mission, and all conscious poets have missions of
their own. Writing at a critical period of Bengali poetry, Bishnu Day
realised that it was most important for a poet in his place to follow cons­
ciously an ideal.Otherwise,it would not be possible for him to become an
important poet. Only conscious effort could prepare the road to success.
Again, by
simply reporting what he sees, a poet can hardly say anything
new. He must be a discoverer of a new world, if not a creator of the
same. Reporting and creative activity must go hand in h a n d . The marxism
and humanism, which ultimately became one in his poetry, suited him best
as ideals. Marxism is a dynamic principle, and humanism, we know, creates
an insatiable urge to know the man-in-universe. As ideals, particularly
for one who wants to travel a long road ahead, these are quite satisfac­
tory. Self-consciousness, thus, helped him to find out his objective for
writing poetry and trace out the way to success. Its importance in buil­
ding his poetic career could hardly be over estimated.
Chi the other hand, the doctrine of impersonality in poetry or
in other words, depwsonalisation of poetry, also helped Bishnu Dey immen­
sely. The idea of ‘Depersonalisation * in poetry is mainly taken from
Eliot*s essay «Tradition and the Individual Talent.* However, desoite
Eliot*s near scientific observation regarding the depersonalisation in
poetry, there is found difference of opinion among the critics of the
doctrine. In fact, the question that how far Eliot*s poetry is really
impersonal is frequently debated by critics. His poetry bears the mark
78
of his personality so distinctly that one wonders where actually l i e s
the line of demarkation between personal and impersonal poetry. 3esides,
the structure of his poetry depends on a philosophy which is his own.
This can hardly be said to be the manifestation of self developing poetry,
though there may be impersonal fusion between feelings and emotions out
side the mind of the poet which remains a nutril catalytic agent. Thus,
whether there can be really impersonal poetry based on 'objective corre­
lative etc.* remains still an open question. About the impersonality in
poetry Eliot himself says j
"There are two forms of impersonality, that which is natural
to the more skilful craftsman and that which is more and more achieved
by the maturing artist. The first is that of what I called the 'anthology
piece* of a lyric by Lovelace or Suckling or of Campion, a finer poet
than either. The second impersonality is that of the poet who, out of
intense and personal experience, is able to express the general truth;
retaining all the particularity of his experience, to make of it a general
symbol".
28
Again on the same subject Gertrude Patterson remarks :
"This 'impersonality* needs careful definition. However, C . K .
Stead for example, put it as the poet's escape from the self into a
deeper self of the soul."
29
Many believe that impersonality in poetry,
in fact, admits the role of a different personality in poetry without
which no poetry can be written. Be that as it may, to Bishnu Dey and
some other Bengali poets the theory of impersonality appears to mean
28. T.S. Eliot t On Poetry and Poets (Selected Prose), pp.225-& 207.
29. Gertrude Patterson s T.S. Eliot, Poems in the making, p.7.
T9
something concerning the objective lesson for a poet in the making and a
bmfis for literary speculation. It stands some where in between the two
types of impersonality Eliot refers to s
One aspect of the impersonality can be proved by a simple test :
whether it is necessary to know the life of a poet in details to under­
stand his poetry? If the answer is in the negative then the poetry of
such a poet can be said to be impersonal. The other form of impersonality
can be found in the generalisation of individual poet*s personal experi­
ence in his poetry. So far as Bishnu Dey*s poetry is concerned,the second
interpretation appears to suit it more than the first. Here, it can be
seen that the term *personality* can be replaced by the word 'individual1.
Poetry, that bears the mark of personality of the poet is the poetry of
an individual. Impersonality brings some sort of universality in poetry.
A poet who writes from the stand point of not an individual but of all
or many, can be said to be an impersonal poet. Ho where, however, Bishnu
Dey tells us any thing like this about impersonality in poetry. But when
one attaches due importance to his interest in the theory of impersonality
and then goes through his poetry to find out where the impersonality is
exercised or rather, the personality is withdrawn, one can see that his
self-consciousness or self-awareness makes him to prepare an objective
basis for impersonality in poetry. The impersonality of a conscious noet
will, however, remain an intriguing question for a critic or a reader of
poetry.
When we look at Bishnu Dey*s poetry we see that there is almost
no example where a positively personal feeling or emotion is given expre-
80
s s i o n to. W h e n e v e r w e see t h e u s e o f
*1* o r
'you* i n h i s p o e m s w e a l s o
see th a t t h e r e a r e m o r e t h a n o n e a n s w e r s t o t h a t q u e s t i o n : W h o is th i s
•I* o r
i f any,
’Ton*? O f t e n p o e m s a r e o f a symbolic n a t u r e a n d t h e p r otagonist,
s tands f o r som e i deas r a t h e r t h a n for p e r s o n s . L e t u s exa m i n e a
f e w exam p l e s :
"I a m s u f f i c i e n t l y o l d
p e n s i o n e d l i f e i t s e l f i s o f t w e n t y f i v e years,
R o w I understand that all labours are useless
I s e r v e d o n l y to sav e m e f r o m s t a r vation
I h a v e n o t h i n g to b e p r o u d o f
On l y there is one consolation
Tha t I have not taken bribes or gratifications*.
(Isayar Shed;
S r e s t a Kabits)
T h i s m a y b e p i c t u r e o f a n y o n e w h o h a s c r o s s e d t w e n t y f i v e y e a r s o r so
a f t e r the r e t i r e m e n t . H e r e p r e s e n t a c l a s s o f p eople, and p r o b a b l y the
m i d d l e class, a s h i s m o r a l i t y shows, a n d l i k e P r u f r o c k the p e r s o n a l
a f f a i r s o f s u c h a m a n is n o t q u i t e p e r s o n a l . S i m i l a r p i c t u r e can be seen
elsewhere :
" H y w i f e ! she is inc o r r i g i b l e ,
L ook, h e r o b s t i n i t y h a s n o t le f t h e r
A f t e r a l l t h e s e years.
But at t h e a g e w e a t t a i n e d
I m p o s i t i o n s of r e s t r i c t i o n s l o o k r e d i c u l o u s
I have been always deceived
N o w t h i n k it again,
81
She should be brought under control by any means".
(Tiresias; Hamrekhechi Kamal Gandhar)
Here also,we can not definitely say who is speaking about whom. The drama­
tic form makes the question unnecessary. The whole questions has become
impersonal. The speech is not ascribed to any known protagonist. It is
applicable to any character of the type. Thus,we see that Bishnu Dey is
always careful not to express his personality in his poetry. As we have
seen, he uses a dramatic style whenever necessary to maintain impersona­
lity in poetry. His poetry is an example of impersonal poetry written in
Bengali, so much so, that it is not only difficult to find out the perso­
nality behind the poetary but also to trace the progress of the mind at
work. Personal views never strike head lines in his poetry. Whenever total
impersonality is found impossible to be attained, it is expressed in a
eaaoufladged way so that it may not distract the reader by an obvious
exposer of personal emotions. For example :
"Do they knock at the doors, those ruffians?
Vadraf your Partha is helpless, crippled,
The bow he carried so long
Has now become too havy for him."
(Pada dvanij Purbalekh)
The way to be impersonal, as we have already mentioned, is the use of
dramatic form. K. Smidt writes :
"But there are other ways of making personal experience imper­
sonal which any body can understand and which Eliot obviously must have
known. One simple way is that of treating a lyrical thane in a more or
82
less dramatic way as seems to hare been done, for instance in the love
song and Protrait of a Lady."
SO
What is this dramatic way in poetry? About this F.O. Mathiessen
says s
"The dramatic elimant in poetry lies in its power to communicate
a sense of the immediate present - that is, of the full quality of a
SI
moment as it is actually felt to consist.
About dramatic poetry Helen gardner remarks s "A situation is
incipiently dramatic if it is on the point of change and we feel* this
can not go on, some thing must happen*. It is fully dramatic when we
feel'something is happening that is changing every thing for those con­
cerned. 'And the drama had been completed when we reaoh a situation where
we feel* some-thing has happened; everything is now different*. Attitudd
can thus incipiently be dramatic or they can be the result of a drama;
and a change of attitude can give us drama though it is not expressed in
action or not the cause of action the drama will be of a rather rarified
kind".
52
Example of similar uses of dramatic method, whese the theme
develops from one stage to another, can be seen in Bishnu Dey's poetry.
Poems like *Saptapadi*, 'Janmastami* or 'Ghorsvar* have incipient dramatio situations within the folds of thematic development and variations.
Frequent change of attitudes also mark the poem. The other way, is to
treat a lyrical those in a dramatic way can also be seen in his poetry.
But it is the dramatic intensity of feeling which makes his poetry almost
51. F.O. Mathiessen; The Achievement of T.S. Eliot, p.66.
32. H. Gardner,op.cit., p.151.
30 • X. Smiidt , op eik , p,
85
always dramatic. Examples are many, but poems like‘Janma stand. { ‘Alekhya,'
'Lucia Prakrit 0 Antra{may be cited here. In Eliot *
*s Prufrock this type of
dramatic intensity is traced by Helen Gardner s
"The originality, however, lies in the bland of this oblique
manner with a highly passionate and dramatic style which constantly
escapes from the region of wit, irony and sensibility into a dramatic
33
intensity of feeling."
Thus, we can see that in Bishnu Dey*s ooetry the
deprasonalisation is attained mainly through the use of dramatic method
in poetry. This way he could be more impersonal as a poet than his con­
temporaries. Buddhadev Bose writes poetry which makes no claim of imper­
sonality. Inspite of realism in his poetry he is in the romantic tradi­
tion of the Bengali poetry* Sudhindranath's poetry bears the distinct
mark of the loneliness of the poet. He is intensely conscious of himself
as an individual in an alien society. Besides, his sense of responsibility,
genuine desire to be reasonable in poetry, the intense anguish springing
out of the fear of an unknown death, the pain of the unbearable life etc.
make it difficult for him to be totally impersonal in poetry. Bishnu
Dey, however, endeavours to remain scrupulously impersonal in poetry.
That is why his poetry is liable to appear to be devoid of the chan*
that comes from the involvement of personality in poetry. Whatever be the
validity of the definition of impersonality in poetry, for Bishnu Dey it
was a means for carving out a different path for himself in the thicket
of intensely personal and romantic poetry of his time.
33. Ibid., p.71.
*
ia also a romantic and as such a ooet of the external
world , S.Dutta : Kulay -0- Kalpurus, p.83.
84
7
The other note in Bishnn Dey*s poetry which stands out very
prominant, is a keen desire to find out the tradition of bengali poetry
and link up his own poetry with that tradition. We have already noted
that Bishnu Dey believes self-consoiousness as one of the major contri­
bution of Eliot to Bengali poetry. This consciousness leads a poet not
only to be conscious about himself but also to be conscious of his place
in time. As a conscious poet he must develop a sense of history and time
in which he is to find out a place for his own creative activity. As
such, he should be a traditionalist and a good poet is always traditiona­
list in this sense. Eliot, therefore, insisted on the conscious effort
*
of a poet to follow the tradition.
About this Eliot says s "A tradition is rather a way of feeling
and acting which characterises a group through out generation; and it
must largely be..... or many of the aliments in it must be unconscious.
Where as the maintenance of orthodoxi is a matter which calls for the
34
exercise of all our conscious intelligence.1*
Bi3hnu Dey is found to be interested to maintain this ortho­
doxy. Writing at a critical perlbd when the mantle of a whole generation
has fallen upon the shoulders of a few, the modern poets had to Drove their
worth appropos of the poets of the past decades, great or small. As such,
Bishnu Dey could not be indifferent to the importance of tradition.
* C f . "Although literary tradition is largely an unconscious growth
Eliot always insisted on a conscious effort by the writer to maintain
it and to belong to it." (Sean Lucy; T.S. Eliot & the Idea of tradi­
tion, p.lS.
34. T.S. ELiot; After Srange Gods, p.29.
85
Besides, the doctrine of tradition has other implications so far as Bishnu
Dey is concerned* Firstly, The concept of tradition helped him to investi­
gate the nature of Rabindranath^ poetry from a new perspective, which
was very essential for a poet of his tine. It helped him to sort out those
parts of Bengali tradition which were not used by Rabindranath. The idea
that Rabindranath has used up all possible material of Bengali poetry and
left nothing for the next generation of poets, thus,proved wrong. He point­
ed out that Rabindranath did not follow the tradition created by the common
people of Bengal. However, it should be noted here that Bishnu Dey has not
taken up the peoples* tradition as his sole ideal of poetry. Ke understood
it quite well that in the present situation it was not feasible to reintro­
duce the folk tradition in Bengali poetry as a major line o f development.
But a poet should at the same time take care that the intellectual!sm in
poetry and must maintain a reasonable relation with popular poetic sensi­
bilities.**
Secondly, the theory of tradition allows new interpretation of
the existing traditionJ thus .enabling a poet to use the already used up
material in a new way. This gives a poet wider field of operation. Thirdly,
the theory also accepts new creative activities as a part of the existing
tradition. This encourages a poet to experiment with new material in
poetry.
Lastly, traditionalism is found to be a means to solve the prob­
lem of communication in poetry. In the absence of a common code for the
** C f . "You have taken up the folk time. This tune was raised in the
'Kallal lugs' and touched the minds of many. A sweet tune indeed; but
too short living and can not be enjoyed for a long time. No song of
big rhythm can be accommodated in it."
(B.Bose *$letter to Aa*af Siddiki* Desh, 30th Nov., 1975.
86
writer as well as the reader the meaning of a poem, a word or an expre­
ssion differs from man to man and even becomes obscure. It needs often
a specialist's job to deciffier the meaning of a poem or a poetic expre­
ssion. The result is often a break of contact between the poet and his
readers. A common code man develop only from a common poetic sensibility
and that again from a common poetic tradition. Without the order and
basis of a common tradition this struggle for meaning becomes an Impossi­
bility and the literary world tends to break up into isolated individual
world of small groups with separate artistic creeds which are almost like
private code. When this happensta writer obviously loses almost all social
significance. This also means the loss of justification for writing.
Bishnu Dey, a careful observer of the problem of communication faced this
particular obstacle of the poets of the time. At the out set, Bishnu Dey
was not sure where to look for the tradition. Once he thought that the
tradition was not always confined to a place or time. This could be found
in remotely connected places or times if one is careful enough to trace
its existence in unexpected places. To search for the tradition in his
own contry only was all the more difficult for him because his Marxist
background had taught him not to accept the history of the country in the
present form as the history of the people. In the available history of the
Bengali literature also,he could not trace out a clear line of tradition
indicating the growth of the popular tradition. So he had to look forward
and interpret past with the help of the present. let,it can not be said
* Of. "The history-consciousness of Bishnu Dey is different. Firstly
according to him the tradition is not confined to any time or place".
(Dipti Tripathi, op.cit., p.167).
"Born in this desert-land, one who is interested to know - the tradition
of perfect art - must go oversea". Sudhindranath : Kabita - Asar 1365,o.3#0.
87
th a t Bis h n u D a y ’s h i s t o r y - c o n s c i o u s n e s s is o n l y f u t u r i s t in n a t u r e . +
How
c a n one l o o k f o r w a r d t o the f u t u r e w i t h o u t a n y k n o w l e d g e o f the past? Not
a t least B i s h n u D a y w h o c o n s i d e r s t h e q u e s t i o n o f t r a d i t i o n so important
for a poet. It m a y b e t h a t h i s h i s t o r y - c o n s c i o u s n e s s is influenced by
marxism. B u t m a r x i s m d o e s n o t d e n / t h e past; it o n l y i n t e r p r e t s t h e past
in its o w n way. B i s h n u D e y f i nd s t h a t t h e Be n g a l i l i t e r a t u r e has two
different lines of development-the aristocratic o r the bourgeois litera­
t u r e and t h e l i t e r a t u r e o f t h e p e o p l e . T h e 1 9 t h c e n t u r y En g l i s h i n f l u e n c e
o n l y he l p e d t o w i d e n t h e g a p b e t w e e n t h e two a n d in t h e 2 0 t h c e n t u r y the
two l ine s h a v e los t con t a c t w i t h e a c h other. A s a result, t h e b o u r g e o i s
lit e r a t u r e h a s b e c o m e rootless. T h e l i t e r a t u r e o f t h e p e o p l e also suffers
f r o m s t a g n a n c y a n d n o effort i s m a d e b y t h e e d u c a t e d c l a s s to c u l t i v a t e
a n d r e v i v e t h i s l i n e o f lite r a t u r e . A b o u t t h i s B i s h n u D e y w r i t e s
:
"To-day, w e h a v e a r r i v e d at the e n d o f t h e w r o n g l i n e o f t h e p o etic expe­
r i m e n t s p o n s o r e d b y t h e A d u c a t e d c l a s s . O n t h e r a j o r e d g e d summit o f o u r
s o c i e t y t h e r e is n o r o o m for s o c i a l support for a poet. Ye t , t h e d e s p e r a t e
n e e d o f t h e s o c i e t y is k n o c k i n g at t h e d o o r o f o u r i n d i v i dualism.
So,the
po e t h a s to c o n s i d e r t h e f e a s i b i l i t y o f p u t t i n g a b r i d g e bet w e e n the
55
tradition and popular consciousness of Bengal.”
In his poems also,he
c r i t i c i s e d t h o s e p o e t s w h o h a v e los t a l l co n t a c t w i t h t h e soil :
"Feeding o n
’Mah u h a * a n d clouds,
Indeed, tha t is t h e m e m o r y o f the c o u n t r y
W e have; A l l k n o t s a r e t o rn.
+ Cf. "The H i s t o r y - c o n s c i o u s n e s s o f B i s h n u D e y is f u t u r i s t in nature;
it d o e s n e v e r l o o k back" (Dipti T r i p a t h i ^ op. c i t .
281).
35. Bis h n u Dey; S a h i t y e r B h a viswat, p.38.
88
The office and the fields are two different things,
They are peasantry there, and here are gentle officials
(Era-0-Ora; Smriti Satta Bhaviswat)
In fact.Bishnu Dey saw the dialectics extended to the life of the Indian
people who are divided into two groups - the town people and the village
people. Besides, the bourgiois class, influenced by the Sanskrit poetry,
has devoreed the Bengali poetry from its popular tradition of lyric and
melody. Bishnu Dey wants to have a synthesis between the literature of
the educated class and the uneducated masses of man, the town life and
the village life, and the poetry and melody. It appears that, at the
beginning, he was not convinced that Rabindranath had made a genuine
attempt to reconcile all these trends of Bengali poetry. To him Rabin­
dranath was a poet of the aristocracy only. let,he could recognise that
this difference was essentially the out come of a economic and social
order which a poet could not change simply through literary means. The
gulf between the two can not be bridged by intellectual activities only.
So ?he writes t
"Time long enough is spent in the light air
High up from the soil,
All are resident of a world of imagination
In a bodiless tower in the air".
(Satbhai Champa)
Or
"I am Cinna the poet, Cinna the poet"
(Epigraph, I am Cinna The Poet).
89
It is not a r m an ivory tower, the tower is bodiless and built in the
air. But because of these contradictions ine should not give up the hope
of a synthesis. He takes the case of the towns and villages for this
purpose. Towns in India, he thinks, are imported structures on a basi­
cally rural country. These are creations mainly of a colonial policy of
a foreign power. In a sense, these are artificial and unreal. They have
no roots in the soil. Often, they are like dustbins of the civilization
"The source has dried up;
Dry is also the river for a long time,
let,this is not only a town, a capital.
Civilization has evacuated all its wastes here
And those
Unnecessary sufferings."
(Dinguli Ratguli; Nanrekhechi..... )
This country, which is village based, harboured towns at the cost of the
villages. Towns are built on the ruins of the villages. They are form­
less and meaningless; they are like heads without bodies, isolated and
often alien in the vast rural country s
"In this rural country, towns are made of villages,
Shifted to the slums.
And in Hternal famine there is the last bodiless head
Of a village raiding town".
(October Dinguli; Hamrekhechi...... )
Town*are also like tigers escaped from the cage of a circus. It goes to
the villages, now many times more clever then a wild tiger, to feed on
90
the villagers. The poet distrusts the town-psychology which looks at the
villages only as the source $f food,
"It is a clever game of the ex-circus tiger
of the town,
He does it partially for the hunger
And partially due to the degenerated habits."
(CIrcaser Bagh; Namrekheohi Kamal..... )
The land in towns are hard. It takes time to strike roots there.
"In towns the land is hard
It takes many summers, rains and snows
To strike roots there".
(Basabari; Smriti Satta Bhaviswat)
But he b e l i e f s that a synthesis is possible. Towns and villages can be
united to bring a revolutionary change in the life of this country. The
river, with a suggestion of synthesis in it/ will perhaps help us to bring
the unity.
"I? the source of the river is known,
And it is generally known;
Then it is found expanding day by day
From village to village, town to town
country to country,
From morning
to
evening, in the night and in the noon,
Catering fruits flowers and grains while turning
Towards the blue and surrendering the self to the sea
at the end."
(Nadir Utsaa Jadi Mane Thake; Namrekhechi.... )
91
So,he goes to the village in the search for our roots - our inheritance.
The Blind gets its natural environment there and expands, and grows
into
its fulfilment :
"So,I am leaving the town
*
To allow my soul freedom in a village field".
(Chaleohi Desh Desantar; Smriti Satta....)
The synthesis should not be limited to mental attitude only or to the
socio-cultural stance of the town and the village; it should to
extended
to the language, the medium that expresses the mind. So,he writes :
" J o * the dance in a combination of
The old and the new rhythm - the town and the village
Then you will know the language of poetry".
*
(Bhasa; Smriti Satta Bhaviswat).
•I
* Hf-toftieves that there in the village lives our real country, though
^
»
*
heps'fenkndun to us :
Der-
"See how strange is our life
For generations we are searching
Our own land
*.
Though we are all the time living
In our own country".
(Avinna Swastite; Smriti Satta..... )
«
The town is an artificial arrangement and nature will not tolerate
for long. It will take its revenge and villages will invade the
ing towns bringing them down to ruins. The only way out is to
danger of the contradiction present between the town and the
to make an effort to overcome it :
t h is
to tte r­
r e a lis e the
v illa g e and
92
"Let your alien mind be one with the
Smallest of- the villages,
The revenge of nature will come to an end then,
Within this century.
The lifeless towns will be shadowed by
The mango groves, jack fruit and black berry trees.
(Avinna Sawastite, Do)
He feels that the search for our tradition out side our own country may
not become successful. For this, one is to turn to his own country and
that too to villages and not to the towns :
"Think, you are the village,
The country, the rural continent
Lakhs of villages together}
*
Admit that your country is uprooted
Hungry disrupted yet imperishable.
Hear the voices of the immortal crores
And say - I love you.
You are not an foglish man or a Frqpch
And have no chance of earning fame in the West".
(Sahaste Bajabe; Smriti Satta.....)
Many of our own people searched for our country through the eye of a forei­
gner and missed it. They also made unsuccessful attempt to discover our
tradition in foreign literature. As a result^we gained nothing. We not only
aiissed our tradition but we also lost our way to the villages, the centre
of our culture and tradition :
95
"In foreign literature we searched
for our inheritance,
And directed ou$ country man right and left,
.
Laboured hard to find our country in foreign books;
Occasionally we lost the book
Or round the bend we lost the way,
And thought of returning to the Tillage
But where is that Tillage a y chief?
(Jaister Triolet Guchha; Namrekhechi.... )
•
Rediscovery of our country is, therefore, essential. Rethinking
on and new
analysis of our tradition must be made to,find out our real inheritance.
But unfortunately modern poets are still indifferent of the tradition
the Bengali literature. He is still an a l i y in his own country :
"How long I am to go on
With the tent on my shoulder;
How long it will take for the outsider
To settle in his own land?"
(Prabas; Tumi Shudhu fanchise Baisak)
Or,
"I am an outsider since a y birth,
My own land is unknown to me."
(Sttriti Satta Bhariswat; Bo)
Or,
"I looked for her a long time
And am searching her still now......
,
But she is not yet completely known,
Distant and unattainable -
of
94
She is still out of the reach".
(Prachhanna Swadesh; Namrekhechi..... )
It remains still a distant picture - the view of our country, of which the
poet now and then fetches a glimpse or two. He knows it is there somewhere,
true as the soil is to the plants, yet it never reveals the complete view
of it to him.
There is also another problem} the sancity of the villages as
the centre of our culture and tradition is now questionable. Villages are
polluted by town - atmosphere. They are now miniature towns. There is
really no refuse for a poet there. Nature is not out of the bounds of human
lust :
"It is a m m 11 room
But occupants are many;
Here the music does not connect
One with another
But where to go?
In the village there are towns decayed
Nature polluted with greed and lust;
To a dying man there is no difference
Between a village and a town".
(Sadhya Sadhe; Ananda Bazar, Puja Issue 1377).
Tradition remains a hidden treasure after a long search. Our inheritence
is not yet completely known. But we see that in his eagerness to discover
the life of the country in the green vitality of the villages, he often
moves not to the villages but to nature :
95
"When in the Autumn - dawn
The heart of dew-drops melt
in the field,
When the *SefaliT is about to wither
And the time of roses is nearer
The west wind murmurs and brings to my mind
The call of tfce peacock from the far off 'Sravatia1
The rain blowing from the east carries
The fragrance of ,Xeyar.
There is also the incessant memory
Of pains and tears of young age
The agony that melts the ground."
(Hemanter Kane Kane; Sariti Satta.... )
Or,
"When in the west the symphony of the
Evening sky starts
lour face appears distinctly carved out
Its stopping glow touching in a starry festival
Each of the fragments of my heart."
(Sonnet; Smriti Satta..... )
He feels that at the bottom of his heart he loves nature. It was all along
there, only he did not know. Now,in the tension between the town life and
the village life the spell of intellectualism is broken and he di^covars
his love for nature :
"It has been known to me - all the time,
An advanced gift to m y life -
96
It was there la my consciousness."
(Lucia Prakriti 0 Jura; Snriti Satta....)
Again pie quotas Wordsworth to say "And Oh the difference to me". He area
finds a panacea of all the diseases of civilisation in nature :
"The disease can be cured by
The sky, the earth, medicinal herbs, fields
Grass, Mountainsfrivers, dans
Including graslag grounds and nature
In healthy peaceful dream and in changes."
(Blood Pressure; Sariti Satta.... )
His lore of nature points out to another aspect of his poetry. Ve find him
aligned with one of the characteristics of the Bengali poetic tradition.
That is, its romanticism and its corollary the lyricism; though the drift,
if it can be said so, is most possibly an unconscious one for a oonsoious
poet. Otherwise, one faces difficulty to explain how a Marxist, with a Mind
trained in the dialectic natexilism arrives at the same conclusion at which
Wordsworth had arrived much earlier. But as we.have noted, this has brought
him very near to the Bengali poetic tradition, if not to his Marxist goal.
Eliot also, we know,is taken by Many critics as a poet in the great romantic tradition of fiigland.
* Cf. "In praotioe, of course Sir Herbert's general principles are not so
limited as applied with dognatio literalness and without the safe guard
of his fine sensibility, they might be. Poets, whose verse and criticise
seam to him alive, like T.E. Holme and Mr. Eliot, are for him really in
the great romantic tradition though they consider themselves neoclassdata". (G.S. Fraser; Vision and Rhetoric, p.19).
Of. "Since the nineteenth twenties critics have been increasingly aware
of tiie continuity of the Siglish romantic tradition and Eliot's place in it."
(l.lktfys; op.oit., p.98).
97
I f a n u r b a n r e a l i s t w h o slashed a t r o m a n t i c i s m a n d c a l l e d h i m s e l f a c l a s s i ­
cist ca n b e t r u p l y i n t h e r o m a n t i c t r a d i t i o n o f h i s country, t h e n t h e r e
ca n be little surprise in the di s c o v e r y that Bishnu D a y i s also a romantic
poet.
" Eliot m o v e s u s so m u c h b y t h a t s p e c i a l i t y w h i c h c o nes f r o m t h e
i d e a s c o n n e c t e d w i t h t h e s u f f e r i n g a n d r o m a n t i c a g o n y o f h i s poetry. And
t h e e m o t i o n c r e a t e d b y thffe p a i n t u r n s h i s i m a g e s int o symbols."
36
B i s h n u D e y f i n d s n o c o n t r a d i c t i o n i n it. T h e r e i s n o r e a s o n w h y
a r e a li s t c a n n o t b e a r o m a n t i c a t t h e same t i me. E v e n i f t h e r e i s c o n t r a ­
diction this can be taken as another manifestation of the principle of
d i a l e c t i c s t h a t e x i s t s i n t h e m i n d o f a poet.
Bis h n u D e y also possesses a fine sense of musio. Bis poems are
f u l l o f r e f e r e n c e s t o m usic. T h i s s h o w s h o w m u c h h e v a l u e s t h e p r o p e r t y
o f music in poetry. F o r example :
"In thunder sounds the
T u n e d la
'Blna*
Klandhar*"
(Panoh Praharj N a m r e k h e o h l ..... )
Or,
"A l l o n a s udden s t a r t s t h e v i o l i n
Intoxicated b y t h e pleasure of music
And dee p pathos."
(Behalar J a a m a d i a Pratidin; Do)
Or,
"There
*Todi* i s b e i n g p l a y e d
la the concert o f
'Agrahana'".
(Jalster Swapnaj
S nrlti S a t t a ...... )
5 6 . B i s h n u D a y t S a h i t y e r Bha v i s w a t , p.38.
98
Or,
"In the sunlight rings
The tune of 'Sarong'".
(Chayatal; Do)
For the same reason Jamini Roy's and fiezamfes painting appeal Bishnu Day.
There is a music in Jamini Roy's paintings and Bishnu Dey, therefore,
writes : "In the rhythm of three times you build up a 'Bhairabi'.'
(Jamini Royer Ek Chabi; Bachar Panchis. Also see Itihase Tragic niase).
Gradually he becomes convinced that music is our tradition. Our
poetry was written to be sung. Our Charjayas, Mangal Kavayas, Padavalies,
Bauls - all are in fact songs. There is hardly any poetry of indigeneas
origin which is not a song, Poetry free from lyric are there in s m s k r i t
but they are transformed into lyrics when Bengali poetry has adopted chem.
The traditional lyricism of the Bengali poetry, thus, has become a oart
of his poetry. So he writes :
"Final writings
In the tradition of devotional songs".
(30th January; Sariti Satta)
His study of Rabindranath makes it clear to him that Rabindranath is essen­
tially a bard who makes the whole nation sing with him, and it is stl 11
singing though the conductor has left the stage :
"We are born in the age
Enlightened by Rabindranath,
So,we know that all creative arts
Find their perfection in song.
Through a process never clearly known
99
Song takes the seven rainbow of the heart by hand and
The finest of the emotions are taken
To the 'Kailas* where it sings to 'Hara-Gauri*
(Naisabda Eto Madhur; Smriti Satta.... •
The whole attitude is now different. Love was once nothing but an emotional
manifestation of physical properties of human body. Now,there is
r-
di 'Pa­
rent meaning in love :
"Love in the suffering soul of a youth
Is not that of an individual
But of many
For the heart touches all."
(Dekheo Valo Lage; Smriti Satta..... )
The shining eye of young boys and girls make him look back and remember
the days of the past when he had a heart with a different desire :
"It gives me pleasure to look at them
They are the embodiment of my memories.
In search of the heart they bring a new life
In the all pervading decay."
(Do)
Not only that, love is also to be preserved from the heartless ^e^ociby
of the m o d e m life.
"Preserve your love in a nest, pure like dream
In the depth of another forest.
Preserve it for the sake of your honour,
For the good of animals and plants and children
And for the good of men.
100
P r e s e r v e it in t h e songs o f m a n and w o m e n " .
(Chalechi D e s h Desantar;
Or,
S m r i t i S a t t a ..... ;
"Love m e a n s t h e o f f e r i n g o f y o u r h e art
t o others,
A c c e p t i n g t h e i r s in t u r n a n d to f o l l o w
T h i s c r e e d b y h e a r t a n d sotl.
G i v e it and h a v e it in y o u r h e art
A n d y o u s h o u l d k n o w w h a t l o v e means".
(Do)
H e n o w l o v e s b e a u t y a n d even t h i n k s t h a t
*0ur sweetest songs a r e those
t h a t t e l l o f s adest thought?, f o r h e w r i t e s s
" There is n o t a s t e in j o y
T h a t is n o t sharp e n e d a n d c harged
W i t h p ain."
(Avinna Swastite;
Smriti Satta.
T h e s a n d y land is n o w p a r t l y fert i l e . T h e poet g o e s to h i s Sa n d w i p island
to collect h o n e y :
"But do y o u k n o w w h y in S a n d w i p Islet
I n self d e s t r u c t i v e v o i d
I s e a r c h f o r the B e e q u e e n . "
(Barang Jeno,
S mriti S a t t a . ..... )
T h e s a n d y land n o w g r o w s grass, m a k i n g t h e a g ing p o e t to d a n c e with joy :
"In t h e shadows o f t h e
g r o w i n g g r a s s o f t h e sand bank,
D a n c e s a g r a y h a i r e d a g e d crane."
(The a g e d C rane. Do)
101
However, it can be seen that inspite of his search for the tradition in
our own country he always maintains a broad out look regarding the concent
of tradition. His search for the meaning of rivers shows him that in the
changing world there is one thing almost constant. That is the steady "low
of life. Li#e in this planet is not an isolated, zonal or disconnected
phenomenon. There exists deep and fundamental relationship*in the whole of
life*s kingdom. People have their tradition; nations have their tradition,
but they are not totally isolated or independent from the broader human
tradition. Ture, national variations, created by geographical, economic,
social, religious conditions etc. are there, but one should also "eel beneath
them the steady flow of the general human tradition. One must know his own
tradition but at the same time he must be conscious of the traditions of
other nations. Sojin a poem written for Paul ELuard he writes :
"Therefore, accept the admission of a poet
The home and the world tire one
And you are the house wife,
Make your home beloved, in the barraks
Which span the earth;
The gallows of greece fora the black cloth of your embrace,
And the eye of the people of my own country deeoen. '
(Poetry without split, For Paul Eluard .
Eliot has shown keen interest in different religious cultures of h,he world,
which is Eliot*s special gift to the m o d e m poetic sensibility and which
makes him a favourite to a wide range of readers through out the world.
About Bishnu Dey*s search for the tradition Amalendu Bose writes :
102
"His search for world tradition and further, his search for the
Indian tradition, at both sophisticated and folk levels, has been strenuous
and long but the strain and the time length have been fully worth while...
The some what intricately personal symbolism of the earlier poems has now
been replaced by concentrated imaged that have their roots and meaning in
depth, in the poet*s experience of the objective world of nature and man,
the eternal sources of poetry."
37
Thus,his search takes him to the basic human tradition, the eter­
nal source of poetry. In the vicissitude and confusion of the modern civi­
lization his poetry shows the exceptional quality of being serene and calm,
a gift of his firm faith in humanity.
VI
The concept of time has entered into the poetry of Bishnu Dey
almost from the very beginning of his poetic career. Hi3 consciousness of
time and the way he looks at it, makes one believe that the concent of time
as such has been taken from Eliot, an exponent of the concept of time in
poetry, Eliot believes that time, no matter in what way it moves - in a
straight line or a cycle or floating like wind or is spread out as a sheet
through out the space, is inherent in the concept of the creation itself.
In the present we can see the past and future; in the past of present and
future and so on because there is actually no dividing point in the con­
tinuous process that is time. In India this concept of time is not a new
one. Rig veda considered the problem of time, Samkhya is found much engro37. A. Bose s Water |$y Roots, pp.35-36
105
seed in the question of time.
Mysticism is always present in
the mini of
A rexHval
an Indian; he speculates often on the nature of time, space etc.
of the question of time in the 19th and 20th century - Europe
natural1/
interested the enlightened irf&ians. A modern Bengali poet*s interest in
the problem of time has>therefore, a traditional link with
the ancient
Indian philosophy. Yet,in Eliot one finds an extradrdinary
consciousness
thinking
of time. His poetry has absorbed the essence of a wide range of
and F.'}.WeiIs.
on time, starting from the Buddha and Heraclitus to Bergson
It is very likely that Eliot*s interest in time has drawn the
attention
of Bisbnu Dey who is a careful reader of his poetry. We find
that Bisvnu
Dey also takes more then casual interest in the problem
poetry time is treated as a continuous movement where
of time. In his
the past oresenr and
future are connected with each other and can inetrchange
their places or oar
telescope into one another. For example :
"Where the past is present in the future
There is only the momentary movement".
(Sesh Romantic; Sresta Kabita)
the past,
Time is also seen as a river moving in a continuous flow, where
present and future are infact the same. Water at the source is
the same
water as it is at the aid; the same drop moves from the beginning
end. The same drop of water may represent past, present or
future to ner-
son depending on the point where he meets the drop of water. So,he
"We have vast time at our disposal
And so our euri&ity engulfs the whole world
There is only one symbol for that * Cf. Jadunath Sinha; History of Indian Philosophy, Vol.l,
to he
p.51.
writes :
104
The River, which flows eternally
la. a single flew.”
(Anvista; Jnvista)
There is always a eontinuty |n the flow ef tine. Tine past present and
future are later-dependent. With the help of past we built our present and
future t
"But we are on earth, we are nan
From following our past we fashion our future
Between this shore and that of our present
Despite sous residues la rain
or artisan water."
(Water Hy Boots)
Every day la our creative noaent the past, present sad future are being
integrated into one single noaent t
"In that all la one Instant
In that peak noaent
The songs of the past and the future grow contemporary
In the daily, in the day to-day routines
In the fertile silt, on all sides minds and body
Life In living."
(Water lfy Roots)
He often uses the word ‘Satta*, which means the existence or that which
exists, In the sense of the term.present. His collection of poems 'Srariti
Satta Hhaviswat* shows the use of the word In the sane sense, because In
the collection he gathers poems from his early writings with that of the
105
present ones with a hope to offer then to the future. Thus ,the none stands
for the past, present and future* Eliot believes that a poet in his poetryfuses the past, preasent and future. Ve see that the sane idea is present
in Bishnu Day's poetry.
"I see you nixing with indifferent desire
ill the tine three
In one line of the present
Not in a ounalative account
But in building the tradition
laoh tine in a new appearance."
(Kaler Rakhal Sisu; Nanrekheohi*....)
To the poet the past present and the future are one, though tine as a
whole moves in each fleeting moment;
"Tour past and future are one
with the present,
let,the sane passes every moment".
(Do)
From his experience he knows that life is connected with tine, in fact
tine is spread through out life's span of past, present and future*
"Life has given me varied taste
So I see life's inage
Extended fro* the renote past
To the far off future*"
(Manab Loke Bhaviswate Chepe; Smriti....)
1C6
But he feels that it is not necessary to go into a struggle to conquer
time or to get redemption from it. Like Sudhindranath he knows that time
is merciless, indifferent and cunning and leaves it at that.
"Alas I
The cunning time is
Unseen yet cruel."
(Janmastand; Srestha Kabita)
The poet does not care so much for atonement or freedom from the cunAing
scheme of time. He has a p p i n n t l y other objectives to follow, o b je c t iv e s
like an ideal human destiny, a resolution of most of the contradictions
of human life, and is content to leave the problem of time alone.
enigma of time never pussies him or even if he is puzzled there i s no
evedence of it in his poetry. He takes it for granted that time i s there
it will be there as it had been always there. He feels that time shonlc
remain in the back ground of our consciousness and shall not d ir e c t ly
intermine in our creative activities :
"With the mind t o m into pieces
You run after the time for nothing.
Go back to your home
And blow your bugle
Time will keep rhythm with you
Of its own accord."
(Sahaste B&zabe; Smriti Satta.....)
107
VII
As a whole Bishim D a y ’s poetry shows a synthesis of tradition
and Experimental!sn, something that can be seen in Eliot’s poetry. There
are good many collections of poems written by Bishnu Dey and he is still
writing. Out-vardly it appears that there is no plqp or scheme behind
these poetical works and it nay be in a sense so. Bob these works are in
no way unconnected or un-related manifestation of the poets sporadic
creative activities. These are connected b y a inner development of the
poet's mind, step by step, from one phase to another into an almost
unpereeptable pattern. From Ghorabali to, Kaxrekhechl Kam&l Gandhar* there
can be seen a development in the mind of the poet, starting from an expre­
ssed demand for a revolutionary change to an almost apoealyptic view of a
new world where man can acieve a society free from all sorts of exploita­
tion* In his collection of poems under the title 'Smriti Satta Bhavisvat1
one phase of the development is rounded off. The pattern upto this reminds
Dipti Tripathi of T.S. Eliot and his Four Quartets, though the poetry of
these two poets moves on different levels and their objectives are also
e
not tiie same.
Till this period and before the poet shows a sign of bis prefe­
rence for a *dnd of humanism which may be described as Marxist - Humanism,
the development in the poets mind appears to be the result of a process based
on observation and analysis of the facts of the external world. let,the
mind in creation did not only benifit from the visible world, it gained
* Gf< D.Tripathi} A d h u e i c B a n g laKavya Parichaya, p.279.
108
al s o l a t h e e x p e r i e n c e t h a t g r o w f r o m within, a d e v e l o p m e n t o f t e n i n t a n ­
g i b l e a n d i n e x p l i c a b l e . S o ,on t h e o n e h e a d w h e n t h e p o e t w a s o b s e r v i n g
t h e o o n t r a l i c t i o n i n o u r l i f e a n d t r y i n g t o e f f e c t a s y n t hesis b e t w e e n
then, o n t h e o t h e r h e w a s g r o p i n g h i s w a y - t h e w a y t h r o u g h w h i c h t h e
r o o t s d e e p i n t h e d a r k n e s s o f t h e so i l f o r w a t e r - f o r a p e r e n n i a l s o u r c e
«e
*
f o r h i s p oetry. A l o r e f o r <c r e ation, l o v e f o r M a n k i n d , f a i t h i n good,
t r u t h (even i f r e l a tive) etc. h a v e s erved a s g o o d a n d f a i t h f u l s ources o f
poe t r y in all a ges sa d have f ound a pernanent p l a c e in the literary tradi­
t i o n s o f a l l cou n t r i e s . G o i n g f o r t h e d e e p e r l e v e l B i s h n u D a y ' s p o e t r y
struck t h i s b a s i c s o u r c e l a yer. S o , w e see i n B i s h n u D a y ’s p o e t r y a co­
existence, i f n o t a synthesis, o f t r a d i t i o n a l i s m a n d e x p e r i m e n t a l ! s m . T h u s ,
i n h i s p o e t r y w e f i n d h i m i n t e r e s t e d i n solving t h e c o n f l i c t b e t w e e n t h e
i n d i v i d u a l a n d t h e c o m m u n i t y o r t h e m u m a n d society, i n e s t a b l i s h i n g u l t i ­
m a t e l y a r e l a t i o n s h i p b e t w e e n m o d e r n i s m a n d t r a d i t i o n a l i s m . I n E l iot 'a p o e ­
t r y a l s o w e s e e a synthesis b e t w e e n t h e m o d e r n c i t y a n d t h e e t e r n a l city,
t h e t e m p o r a l a n d t h e s p i r itual a n d t h e r e a l i t y o f t i m e a n d t i m e l e s s n e s s .
Bishnu D e y believes that a n individual can find hi s fulfilment
o n l y i n t h e m a s s e s o f people. T h o u g h a r o m a n t i c h i m s e l f , h e d i s - f a v o u r s
t h e romantic loneliness o f a poet as m u c h a s h e dislike the alienation of
a n i n d i v i d u a l f r o m society. I n a p o e m HJrbasi a n d A r t e m i s * h e e x p r e s s e d
his fear of loneliness :
"In t h e h u m a n w i l d e r n e s s I a m a t r a v e l l e r
P r o m t h e o||tor w o r l d . . . . .
F e a r w h i c h i s e v e r y w h e r e - i n lan d a n d sea
Makes the b o d y and mind shudder every moment.”
(Sahabivettasmadekaki Bive t i ) .
109
He says how the creator himself felt lonely and divided himself H r st­
int© two and then into many to overcome the loneliness. In a poem of'
'Chorabali* (Ghorswar) we see him desperately trying to overcome the
lbneliness. He is lonely and, therefore, incapable of becoming productive*
almost death itself, a surrepitious death, in the form of Choraba 1.
He wants to engulf the life of the mass people - the Ghorswar (The Rider
within himself. This will bring him into communion with others, thus
saving him from becoming a cunning killer of life :
"In the human sea the tide has come
But in my heart there is only sand banks
I am the quick sand;
My voice echoes in the horizon
Where is the rider?"
(Ghorswar; Chorabali)
There is one easy solution of the problem of loneliness; that is to
accept love as a connecting force between the straying souls. But fo”
a poet who once took love as a conditioned reflex it was not easy tc
arrive at a conclusion where love resolved one of the greatest of the
problem of the human kind - the loneliness of man. Never-the-less, there
is always the tension brought by the drift towards the shore of love;
"If my hallucination takes me
Across the river of death
To whom shall I offer
My futureless fatigue of darkness?"
(Cressida; Chorabali)
no
But the tension between the two situations - the mind which sees the
reality of a barren and sterile life and the instict which vibrates .nth
the hope of fulfilment in love and companionship, has not created con­
fusion in the mind of the poet because he has an unflinching faith ir.
the ultimate victory of mankind as a whole. The society will be recons­
tructed and the common people will get place of importance in the society.
Collective interest will prevail upon individual’s love of power. I n d i v i ­
dual's isolation will be broken by the pressure of the new system :
"Greedy Beduins 1
They come to plunder the houses of Dwarka
Vith assured confidence
They want lively wives and mothers
Rich in the wealth of life.
They want land for cultivation
Tanks, farm and mines dazzling with gold."
(Padadwani; Purbalekh)
It is better, therefore, that the individual should relinquish o p hi
own accord the claim to retain the power of intellectual domination ever
the common people. It is useless for him to remain alone on a hill top of
personal vanity,cut eff from the vast and powerful mass life. Re should
leave his shelter of seclusion and come down to meet the sea of 1ipe :
"0 J the perpitually frastrated one, hear mel
Leave that mountain - top recluse
Let the metaphor be destroyed,
Come flowing down the vales
Ill
Like a falls awakened,
Gome to the sand - banks full of melons
Come with your sharp currents to the murmuring sea
Gome to the lonely blue and meet the
Human sea at tides".
(Chite Baisakhe; Sandweper Char)
But as a poet he is conscious that simply the merger of the individual
with the community in a reformed society is not enough. The union between
the two can take place only through the union of the individual with the
individual s
"Let there be oneness, the oneness of many
•
•••
•••
•••
•••
What you told that day, in that oneness
Let there be a resolution of the conflict
Between the one and the many".
(Bahu Baraba; Hamrekhechi......)
Going for the union of individual with the individual and individual with
the community he has been all the time moving towards a humanist view o'
life. Herefhe breaks away from Eliot. Eliot moved to a spritual end where
the fire of lust is redeemed by the fire of fove. Bishnu Dey goes for the
best possible attainment of man as a man on the ordinary human level. It.
is not possible for all or many to attain the spiritual level mentioned
by Eliot. Bishnu Dey as a poet with socialistic ideas wants the good to
be shared by the majority of people; it should not be kept reserved
or
the initiated or the chosen few. So,he differs from Eliot here. Eliot has
112
n e v e r been a n adalrer o f secular humanigau
T o h i m h u m anism is an anti­
t h e s i s o f t h e r e l i g i o n s d i s c i p l i n e o f t h e m i d d l e ages. It br e d c h a o s in
t h e h u m a n society. I n s t e a d o f b r i n g i n g u p l i f t m e n t i t l e d m e n t o a n u n b r i d d l e l w a y o f sel f g r a t i f i c a t i o n . T h e r e s u l t v a s u t t e r l y b a d f o r the l a t e r
ages. H u m a n i s m a t i t s h i g h e s t m a r k e d t h e l o w e s t p o i n t o f a c u r v e o f h u m a n
achieveme n t .
"The g o i n g u p o n e s t a r t e d a s t h e h u m a n i s t i c v i ew, p r e d o m i n a n t
f r o m t h e s i z t h - t e e n t h t o t h e e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y a n d i m p l i e d in t h e t i t l e
o f G i b b o n ' s D e c l i n e a n d Fall. T h i s i s a n
bottom with the
’U ? s h a p e d p a r a b o l a r e a c h i n g i t s
'truimph o f b a r b a r i s m a n d r e l i g i o n * i n t h e d a r k ages, and
m o v i n g u p w a r d w i t h t h e r e v i v a l o f l e a r n i n g ..........T h e c o m p l e m e n t a r y o r
r o m a n t i c v i e w is a n i n v e r t e d
'U* r i s i n g t o i t s h i g h e s t in m e d i a v e l G o t h i c
38
a n d f a l l i n g o f f w i t h t h e r e n a i s s a n c e a n d i s m o s t a r t i c u l a t e in B u s k i n . "
K L i o t ,a c c o r d i n g t o N o r t h r o p Frye, s u b s c r i b e s t o t h e l a t t e r view.
Eliot, h e sa y s i s " U n i f o r m l y o p p o s e d t o t h e o r i e s o f p r o g r e s s that i n v o k e
t h e a u t h o r i t y o f e v o l u t i o n a n d c o n t e m p t u o u s o f w r i t i n g s whj&attenipt to
p o p u l a r i s e a p r o g r e s s i v e v i ew, l i k e H.G. V e i l ' s . T h e d i s i n t e g r a t i o n o f
Eu r o p e b e g a n s o o n a f t e r D a n t e ' s time;
tu r e was an age o f progressive
a dinnmition o f all aspects of cul­
'degeneration*;
in t h e last fifty years
59
evide n c e s o f d e c l i n e a r e v i s i b l e i n e v e r y d e p a r t m e n t o f h u m a n a c t i v i t i e s . "
*C f . " H u m a n i s m i s e i t h e r a n a l t e r n a t i v e t o r e l i g i o n o r i s a n c i l l a r y t o it.
T o m y m i n d i t a l w a y s f l o u r i s h e s m o s t w h e n r e l i g i o n h a s b e e n strong; a n d
i f y o u f i n d e x a m p l e s o f h u m a n i s m w h i c h a r e n o t re l i g i o u s ; o r at l e a s t in
o p p o s i t i o n t o t h e r e l i g i o u s f a i t h o f t h e p l a c e 6 f time, t h e n such h u m a ­
n i s m is p u r e l y d e s t r u c t i v e , f o r i t h a s n e v e r f o u n d a n y t h i n g t o r e p l a c e
w h a t is d e s t r o y e d " .
(Selected Essay, p . 4 7 9 ) .
58. N.Frye; T . S . Eliot, p.7.
59. Ibid., p.8.
115
H e n o e fw e see h i s i n d i f f e r e n c e t o a l l t h i n g s w h i c h a r e
’i n e s c a p a b l y h uman*
a s Ian H a m i l t o n q u o t e s ^ f t e W a s t e L a n d a n d o b s e r v e s :
"I c o u l d n o t
S p e a k a n d a y sp a n fai l e d , I w a s n e i t h e r
Living n o r dead and I k n o w nothing
L o o k i n g int o t h e h e a r t o f light, t h e silence".
T h e s e a r e b e a u t i f u l lines, a n d t h e y a r e c e n t r a l t o w h a t t h e y t e l l u s o f
E l i o t 1s d i s t a s t e n o t jus t f o r c a s u a l sex, b u t i n t h e W a s t e Land, F o r all
behaviour that is inescapably human."
40
Eliot w a s writing w i t h a n objective w hich culminated in the
L i t t l e Gl i d i n g . T h a t o b j e c t i v e h e f o u n d I m b e d d e d i n t h e t r a d i t i o n of
Engl a n d a n d i n t h e w i d e r t r a d i t i o n o f Europe. H e b e l i e v e d t h a t d u r i n g
t h e t i n e o f D a n t e E u r o p e w a s r e l i g i o u s l y m u c h i n t egrated;
and p e r h a p s in
t h e F o u r Q u a r t e t s t h i s r e l i g i o u s a n d c u l t u r a l i n t e g r i t y w a s t r i e d to be
recaptur e d . B l s h n u D a y a l s o w r i t e s w i t h t h e I n d i a n t r a d i t i o n i n mind;
and this directs h i m to a different goal. T h e great tradition of h u m a n i s m
o f I n d i a w h i c h i s r e f l e c t e d i n t h e Epics, Puranas, a n d i n t h e p r e a c h i n g
o f t h e r e l i g i o u s leaders, a n d w h i c h i s r e v i v e d i n t h e r e n a i s s a n c e o f
Bengal of the 19th century and t h e n carried to a dazzling height by
R a b indran a t h ,
e n t e r s i n t o t h e p o e t r y o f Bishrra Dey. A f t e r all, h e is
str i v i n g f o r t h e h a p p i n e s s f o r all, i n a f r e e s o c i e t y b a s e d o n equality.
As a poet,he can not a s k for the good for the
'have n o t s * only. H e w a n t s
t h e g o o d t o b e s h a r e d b y all, e a c h a c c o r d i n g t o h i s d e s e r t . H e n c e , i t
c o m e s to t h a t t h e p o e t w a n t s a b e t t e r l i f e f o r t h e mankind, n o t t h r o u g h
40. I a n Hamilton; T h e W a s t e Land; E l i o t I n p e r s p e c t i v e - a s y m p o s i u m
Bi. G r a h a m M a r t i n , pp.106-8.
*
114
the equal distribution of wealth only, but also of air, water, sky, ’and
scapes, mountains and all other gifts of nature.
In humanism he finds what he wanted. Here,in the love for all
the union between the individual and the community, village and ‘-own, an
words and melody is found possible :
"In the men I know
I found the music of words
The similarity of the same plane at the end,
My mind is now the blue sky of ’Amwin1
Here is a village - town quiet, healthy a pleasure for the eyes."
(Anupras Antya Mil; Smriti...... )
He also seems to think that by becoming one with the life of the nas es
of pmople one may be able to solve the problem of an individual through
a broader view of human life. So he writes :
"Let us go, 0 churalaJ
To the bay of Bengal, to the deathless isle
Of Sandwip, to the Indian sea, Massallapuram,
Konarak, Cilka lake or Kokonad Rameswaram
Travancore, Hastigumpha Cambe or bay of the kach,
Java, Bali Martaban, Odessa, Astrakhan
Batum, Balkhas or Karkol, Aral Let us go some of u s .....
Prom the Himalayas to the sea
Every where to the planes or the waves
115
In the Ganges, Padna, Sind, Volga
To those waters of freedom Where moves the waves of life."
(Chaite Baisakhe; Sandwiper Char)
Loving man he comes to love life, the life with its anguish, pain and
toil. He finds in the struggle for freedom the ultimate success o 1' ]i“e.
In the struggle for the better and higher life the mankind is most glori­
fied. Success may evade an individual but not the community
or ’he man­
kind as a whole. So,he is hopeful; he finds life worth living;
"Life, it appears, is a reality
This momentary existence is divine."
(Charak, Easter, Ider Roja; Srnriti Satta...)
He feels that the human song is the greatest of all songs.
"Human song fill the soul up to the brim
And makes one believe that every thing is possible,
AV
Every thing -
To make every body your dearest
To bridge the gulf of life and sing it in
an unbroken melody
In words spoken or not, the sound becomes
Real and meningful in its proujid freedom."
(Parke Apon Rare; Srnriti Satta..... )
His thirst for life is un-quenchable. He wants to be a son, gr®»»d son
and great grandson injorder to see more, to feel more and to knov
nor-, he
116
Is free from the nostalgia for the past. He does not like to look baok and
pine for what is lost. He looks forward in expectation, hope and joy. Here,
he differs from most of the roauntie poets.
"I have no repentance
And so I have desire to be the grandson
Or the great grand-son,
Curiosity is endless and deathless is our hope....
Grandson or great grand-son I, therefore,
Like to become, because love grows with time
Though in the daily struggle for existence
I also join the voice of the milion of m y country
And shout............ "Shame1"
(Manab loke Bhaviswat Chepe; Smritl.... )
He himself admits that he is an humanist. In unity, diversity, in stru­
ggle, in joy, in grief, in toil, in art - in every thing, he finds man
holding the central position. He loves nature for the sake of his love
for man and he remains faithful to his worship of the humanity of man :
"He lives on man - always,
So,he looks into the face of nature and human life
Prom that perspective in which mind finds every one
His dearest s no matter beautiful or miserable....
That is why in towns or in villages
In telescope or in microscope
He builds the vastness of nature
117
I n m usic, landscape, I n u n i v e r s a l h u m a n d a n c e
I n expanse, d e p t h - i n d i v e r s i t y
Wit h his own and others
Ne r v e s a n d consciousness
I n o n e r e t u a l i s t i o d a n c e o f self s u r render".
(Snaute C h a i t a n y e M i l e Etc Nirajane; D e s h P u j a issue,
1 3 7 9 B.S.)
In his attempt to kno w man h e finds t h e level of d e e p calmness of mind
w h o r e t h e f e e l i n g a n d e m o t i o n s f u s e int o one. Here, i n t h e e ternal s t u d y
o f t h e m a n k i n d h e r e t r i v e s h i s p o e t i c sel f
a q u i e t a n d serene still
point. H i s f a i t h i n t h e u l t i m a t e v i c t o r y o f m a n k i n d t a k e s h i m t o t h a t
p o int w h e r e t h e u p w a r d o r d o w n w a rd, f o r w a r d o r b a c k w a r d m o v e m e n t s a r e
inconsequential;
f o r t h e u l t i m a t e m o v e m e n t i s ftree f r o m a l l tension.
Eliot
e
f o u n d t h i s s t i l l p o i n t o n a d i f f e r e n t level.
But o n e c a n n o t b u t m a r k
t h e p o i s e a t t a i n e d b y t h e s e t w o p o e t s i n a w o r l d o f v i c i s s i t u d e s . It is
a n exp e r i e n c e t o w a t c h h o w s t e a d i l l y t h e y p r o g r e s s a s p o e t s i n a d i s t u r ­
b i n g world. B u t t h a t d o e s n o t m e a n t h a t a s a p o e t B i s h n u D e y h a s r e a c h e d
a static p o int. H e i s r a t h e r t h e o p p o s i t e o f it. A v e r y d y n a m i c poet, h e
n e v e r ce a s e s f r o m e x p l o r a t i o n o f l i f e a n d n e v e r s t o p s h i s exp e r i m e n t w i t h
poetry. T h e r e s u l t i s t h a t h e i s a l w a y s a p o e t w i t h a n e w f a c e t o o f fer.
T h r o u g h observation and experiment h e always tries to find out his latest
position vis-a-vis the changing world. In short,his w o r k s reminds one of
E l i o t * s s aying :
"Th e p o e t s * p r o g r e s s i s d u al. T h e r e i s t h e g r a d u a l a c c u m u l a t i o n
o f e x p e r i e n c e l i k e a t a n t a l u s jar;
it m a y b e o n l y o n c e i n f i v e o r t e n
* C f . "The e n d l e s s c y c l e o f i d e a a n d a c t i o n ficdless invention, Endless
e x p e r i m e n t s B r i n g k n o w l e d g e o f mot i o n , b u b n o t s t i l lness" (The B o o k ) .
118
years that the experience accumulates to form a new whole and find its
appropriate expression. But it the poet were content with nothing less
than always his best, if he insisted on waiting for these unprofitable
crystallization he would not be ready for them when they come. The develop­
ment is largely unconscious, subterranean, so that we ean-not gauge the
progress but in the meantime the poet must be working; he must be experi­
menting and trying his techniques so that it will be ready, like well
oiled fire engine, when the moment comes to strain it to its utmost.
The poet who wishes to write poetry must keep training; and must do this
not by forcing his inspiration, but by good workmanship on a level oossible for some hour*s work every week of his life."
41
41. T.S. Eliot; Introduction to Selected poems of E S r a Pound, o.l8.