Letters from a Young Poet (47 page)

Shilaidaha
25 September 1895

Men have, by their own hand, made this social world of theirs so complicated and entangled that it's become a huge problem simply being happy or making others happy. But sorrow is perhaps a very necessary thing for man, perhaps more essential than war or striving or tolerance or sacrifice or being happy. Unhappiness turns a man into a man, and that humanity has some value somewhere or other. Those who peddle religion say that god makes those he loves suffer. That might often sound like devious ‘
cant
', but that doesn't mean it's completely without foundation. Suffering is the one and only value of our souls, our loves, our most precious treasures…. The unfortunate thing is that we don't have the wherewithal to alleviate another's sorrow. That's why making money doesn't seem a small thing. If I can make some money through this business of ours then I'll be able to quell many of my heart's sorrows—one cannot deal with someone's unhappiness in this
material
world by wishes alone.

Shilaidaha
26 September 1895

I see no signs of a storm coming, though—there are very few clouds in the sky, the river is very calm, the daylight is clear and bright—the
boat
races ahead in the current with a whistling sound and the breeze blows softly—a certain happy languor fills my heart. Today is the last day of my solitary existence; besides
all my other work, from tomorrow I'll have to concentrate on hospitality…. I still haven't started writing for
S
ā
dhan
ā. I've kept up only a partial relationship with Saraswati through some discussion of music. Nature is so close to you here, her pulse and heaving breath can be felt from up close to such an extent that one doesn't feel like expressing one's self in anything that needs more effort than music. Nothing is closer to nature than song—I know for certain that right now if I look outside my window and begin to intone the Rāmkeli raga, this endless sun-coloured, greenish-blue scenery shall come into my inner essence like a mesmerized doe and begin to caress me. Every time it rains on the Padma, each time I think, let me compose a song for the rains in Meghamallār, but where's the strength? And after all, the audiences don't have this daily attraction of the rains in front of them; they'll find it monotonous. Because the words are the same—it rains, it's cloudy, lightning flashes. But its inner ever-new passion, its autochthonous, never-ending sorrow of separation [
birahabedan
ā] can only be expressed partially in the melody of a song.

Shilaidaha
30 September 1895

I see you're really annoyed with the writer of ‘Us and Them' [‘
Āmrā
o tomrā']. But the man is sitting there thinking, ‘What fun'. The problem is, you cannot explain rasa to a man who doesn't understand it because the appreciation of rasa is sensory and has to be experienced. So much so, that even persons who have a sense of rasa may have differences of opinion when they evaluate good or bad. That's why the task of reviewing seems
like such a chore and the same goes for the work of writing. Still, the work of judging good or bad continues in the world, and not too badly either—although differences of opinion are not scarce, with the passing of time a certain unanimity is arrived at in public opinion. Somewhat like
natural selection—variation
manifests itself in many forms every day, but that which does not endure falls by the wayside for different reasons, and that which does attains a certain unity. If the seeds that we writers sow have a truly lasting worth in the minds of people, then however critical a reviewer may be, that seed will not go in vain. Actually, man's mind is not something one can know well—I can say with some certainty what I will like or dislike for now, and can even speculate on what others will like or dislike, but the moment it becomes a little fine or complex, it's only the most skilled or knowledgeable critic who can account for it. And even the most skilled critic can sometimes make mistakes. The mark of a good critic is that his understanding is as nuanced as his empathy is all-encompassing and his literary experience vast. He should be able to transcend his own likes and dislikes, and with the help of his powers of empathy access different tastes and different situations. That sort of person is very rare. Rather, one may find many good writers, but a real critic is very rare. But the surprising thing is—even then, it is only good writing that goes on to establish itself in the affections of the ordinary reader. So, whether there is anything like an ideal taste isn't something one can conclude through nuanced argument; yet, ordinarily, a certain ideal of taste is constructed in human society through use and nothing that's totally ugly ever survives as beauty—mistakes are made, and those are then corrected as well. If that were not so, the talented would not have been trying so hard through all time to achieve completeness in the creation of beauty—they cannot prove that there is an imperative ideal of taste, yet they devote their staunchest efforts to that truth.

Shilaidaha
4 October 1895

With the rain and the clouds gone, it's turned out to be a very beautiful day. Today the śara
t
season has been properly established. The word ‘beautiful' is used often for many different purposes—that's why the word has become almost unusable; yet there aren't that many words that one can use instead of it. Whatever it is, today is a precious and rare day—my heart is completely full with this light, this silence, this clear, white, transparent sky. Some unknown magician has stroked a nectar-filled intoxicant upon my eyes with tender hands, so that this still river in mid-afternoon and the sandbank on the other shore embroidered with glad kāś flower forests seem to me as pleasurable as a distant memory. I'm filled with a very selfish regret when I think that I will not be able to access these deep śara
t
days as completely as this when other people arrive on the
boat
. Perhaps it's in anticipation of that impending interruption that today's enjoyment of silence and solitude is all the more intense. It's as if the hurt and proud companion of my exile, with her tender, steadfast gaze, has come to bid me farewell. It's as if she says to me, ‘What's the point of this domesticity and these ties with your relatives—I am what you have been meditating upon for all time, I am the beloved of all your past lives, your only familiar acquaintance among all the numberless fragments of your eternal lives—do not, for any reason, neglect my precious company, for your inner soul does not receive the ultimate fruits of beauty, happiness or sorrow from any other hand than mine.' But all these words will sound unreal and baseless before the present workplace and the real world—although if you look at it from a distance and review the matter a little deeply, you will see that it's not such an invalid thought after all. It is no
small thing for me to keep the layers of my soul watered in the abundant peace of this śara
t
. If I go and stay at some inaccessible place in the interests of the jute business, people will praise me, and my sense of duty too will be at peace, but if I disappear for a few days without any work, then it's difficult not to make either myself or others anxious. All that gives me the deepest satisfaction and pleasure in this life is stored in this sort of moment of solitude and beauty alone—it's become impossible for me to gather that in a fragmentary or diluted way from the social world. A new truth is rising gradually from the depths of my heart—I get only its merest hint. For me, it is a permanent everyday resource, the pure liquid gold extracted from the mines of my entire life experience—the crop of nectar within all my sorrow, grief and pain—if I can obtain it in a clear, expressive and dependable form, it is more to me than all my money, status, fame, happiness—even if I don't obtain it completely, just orienting the natural and necessary flow of my heart in that direction is something of a major accomplishment. If I were always happy, if I had attained all that I wished for after having completed all the work of my days to spend my days in ease, how little would I have got out of this human birth—what would I have known!

Shilaidaha
4 October 1895

Nowadays the days have turned extremely sweet—the breeze is cool, the sky is bright, the shoreline is green, the river is calm, the heart is a refuge for dreams, there's little work, all my writing has ceased, the holidays are all around, and beauty flows both within and without. The gurgle of the water seems to have
somebody's very tender tones of love mixed in it; the clear blue sky too is bent with the weight of affection, and the calm waters are full of queries of love; all these colours—this deep brownish-orange [
geru
ā] of the water, the white of this shore, the green of the other shore, the blue of the sky, the gold of the sun—all this shines in the rays of śara
t
in so many outfits and with such smiling glances! The entire sky, like an infinite heart, seems to hold me in its embrace. The astonishing thing is that day after tomorrow when there will be a crowd of people over here, all this will seem to not be here at all—when men arrive, nature seems not to find a place in nature any more. Man takes up so much space, wastes so much!

Kushtia
5 October 1895

Who is it who tells me to look at everything with depth and seriousness, who inclines me towards listening to the ancient music of this world with so much attention and absorption, who recites a mantra of melancholy over me so that all my restlessness fades away day by day, allowing me to experience all my finest and most forceful connections with the outside in this secluded, silent, alive and self-conscious way! I have starved often and for long periods in this life to keep penance—it's a result of this
tapasy
ā [meditation] that the world's limitless and mysterious depth is almost always spread like an ocean before me. No good is done to man if his heart is gratified at every moment—that only produces a limited amount of happiness and wastes an unnecessary number of ingredients, and more time is spent on the preparation rather than the enjoyment. But if you live your life by practising
austerity, you will see that even a little bit of happiness is a lot, and that happiness is not the only pleasurable thing on earth. If you want to keep the heart's faculties of sight, sound, touch and thought vigilant, if you want the ability to receive all that you can receive to remain sharp, you must keep the heart always hungry—you have to deprive yourself of abundance. I have kept something Goethe said always in mind—it sounds simple, but to me it seems very deep—

Entbehren sollst du, sollst entbehren.

Thou must do without, must do without.

Not only food for the heart, outer pleasures and comforts and things too make us inert—it is only when everything outside is scant that you can find yourself. That's why the relative comfort of Calcutta begins to prick me after a short while, as if its small pleasures and enjoyments were making it difficult for me to breathe.

Yet tapasyā is not something I have wanted of my own will, happiness is very dear to me, but since god has forcibly created in me an inclination towards tapasyā, maybe he wants some special results from me; at the end of it all—dried, ground-to-dust, burnt, scattered—perhaps something hard will remain from this life that will endure. Sometimes I can feel a shadowy premonition of this. The dharma we get from the śāstras never becomes my dharma; it is only a sort of habitual bond with it that develops over time—for me it's only the dharma that is
crystallised
in the unbearable heat within my life that is the real thing. I can't explain this to anybody else, and there's no need to either—they will not be able to understand the inner meaning of it, and even if they do they'll distort it—but to take that and allow it to grow within one's self is man's best evidence of his humanity. You give birth to it in the greatest pain, give your own blood to make it live—and then,
even without having been completely happy in this life, it might be possible to die contented:

Entbehren sollst du, sollst entbehren
.

Kushtia
6 October 1895

I'm letting my days float away one by one in a stream of laziness like Rathi's paper boats. Only occasionally do I compose a song or half a song, and then I sit on the chair in an idle way, humming the tune; I keep forgetting the tune and I make it again, and then I remain lying there, curled up in this sweet-memory-filled, melancholy-soft śara
t
season. I don't quite know when I'll be able to tighten my belt and get down to some serious work. A breath rises from this vast water and riverbank and falls upon my body—a very intimate and live presence full of life and love and feeling has attached itself to me, both within and without, and I just cannot tell it to go. This unbounded, light-filled blue sky seems to be bent over my heart, the light has entered my blood, the all-enveloping silence has embraced my breast with both hands, a tender, tear-wet calm kisses my eyes, my forehead—I'm encircled by an all-encompassing yet secluded beauty. Everybody has left their work and come home for the Puja holidays, and this is my home too—my home-body snatches away my exercise books and says, ‘You've worked a great deal, now stop for a while.' I too comply and stop without protest; after this, work will get a hold of me at some time and grab me by the throat—then this home-body of mine, this mistress of my holidays, will have disappeared and it will be impossible to find any trace of her. Nowadays, I frequently think to myself that I shall sink the
S
ā
dhan
ā, monthly and quarterly, in the waters of the Padma and leave. But I know that even if I sink it, it shall drag me along in its wake.