by Joy Goswami
You know I spent my childhood far away from Kolkata. You also know that behind the house where we lived, there was a silted-up pond and a jungle of bushes, I’ve written about all this so many times. That was the year 1960-61. When the darkness of the pond and the jungle would deepen a little, the bats would rise flapping their wings from the enormous deodar tree behind the house. All around, a torrent of birdsong. And the minute darkness fell, from the broken house at the edge of the pond and from the jungle of bushes, a chorus of unknown creatures would call out.
Baba, who’s calling? And my father— Listen! They call every three hours. Ora prohore prohore daake.
One night, almost dawn, when Baba’s illness had worsened, the doctor and a few neighbours were in the house, when suddenly, outside, they called out—the jackals.
I don’t know if I understood the meaning of prohor, but late at night a sudden sound woke me up inside my mosquito-net—they were calling, together. Unceasing. One night, almost dawn, when Baba’s illness had worsened, the doctor and a few neighbours were in the house, when suddenly, outside, they called out—the jackals. I was six or seven years old when I heard them call.
Meanwhile, my father passes away. The wall of our house collapses in a biggish storm. No way to repair it. Now the bare bones of the broken house standing next to the tulsiplatform in that low jungle of bushes can be seen clearly. In fact, beyond all that, the narrow roads that lead towards the main road or the station—even those can be seen. Those days the houses stood far apart. Tangles of bushes in between. Snakes, scorpions, lizards and frogs roam about in our courtyard. And because the wall is gone, the fear of burglars. We sleep with the windows and doors closed. And at night, I was as terrified as I was eager to open the window and look out. One day after Ma had fallen asleep I quietly opened the window and saw something burning in the darkness. I shut the window instantly, the sound woke up Ma, when we put on the outside light and opened the window again, we saw five of them roaming in our courtyard. They looked like dogs, but they weren’t dogs. Moving away from the light, they left through the slope of our broken wall, descending into the pit of marshy darkness.
I’ve started reading stories in children’s books about the jackal’s deceitfulness. But when I see them face to face all I feel is a kind of compassion.
Ma used to wake us up at the break of dawn. The sky had a bluish darkness. The bats would be returning to their deodar tree. The three of us would come out on to the veranda. And two or three of them would leave our veranda and courtyard and descend into the marshy jungle. In the meantime I’ve started reading stories in children’s books about the jackal’s deceitfulness. But when I see them face to face all I feel is a kind of compassion. Even though I hear they’ve stolen a chicken from someone’s house, a duck from someone else’s. Someone’s daughterin-law had oiled and lain her baby down in the sun next to the well, one of those jackals had entered, intending to snatch the child in its jaws. Ultimately it ran away to save itself.
Meanwhile, the overgrown bushes along the pond, the babul trees, the jujube trees, the sheora trees, the deodar trees have started being sold off. The city council has started filling in the pond with mud. Not only behind our house, all the roads that wind in and out, near and far, leaving trees and ponds behind, are rearranging themselves. Now they run past heaps of brick, wood, concrete, cement, sand, gravel. Labourers are toiling, so many men, women, girls. Beside the main roads and the paths, in narrow strips of fallow land, they’ve started building shacks and living in them. One evening, hearing a commotion, I ran to the breach in our wall. A bunch of men running with sticks pikes shovels in their hands—and fleeing madly out of the tangle of bushes, the jackals. One or two of them try to save themselves by hiding in the small bushes near the house, the men instantly jab them to death. The last pack is still fleeing. The men are racing after them. Me, my brother and my brother’s friend, we’re running after them. Past the houses, past the train tracks, the jackals arrived near the railway godowns. One died there. And the remaining three or four ran across the empty field. We reached the field and stopped. On the other side, the sun on the verge of sinking—the jackals are running—behind them the men are still yelling and running. The sticks pikes shovels in their hands raised high.
When I first read the poem ‘All Those Jackals’, I didn’t remember this scene. Today, after so many years, I remembered it. Does the poem have any connection with the scene? I cannot say for sure.
Aniruddha, when I first read the poem ‘All Those Jackals’, I didn’t remember this scene. Today, after so many years, I remembered it. Does the poem have any connection with the scene? I cannot say for sure. But since I’m writing this letter, let me tell you something else. Those people living in shacks along the main roads, the side roads—even they were chased away one day, their shacks demolished and burnt. One of the people living there was killed. Before he died he ran from house to house in the middle of the night, pounding on closed doors as they chased him down. No one opened up. That poor man was hacked to death right across the road. The doors of the houses he’d hammered with his hands, was one of those doors mine, Aniruddha? The road he was killed on, was that the road to my house? The ones who sat silently in their houses despite hearing the screams, was I one of those? The way we had all rushed to watch the death of those helpless creatures in that sunset field—in that way?
The slaughter of brother by brother, the death of neighbour at the hands of neighbour. No, it wasn’t a riot.
Ages later. The years rolled around. ’70-’71-’72. At that time, on one hand, the incessant killings in Bangladesh and the tide of humanity that fled the country, and on the other hand, here, beside our homes, our roads, at night and dawn, in the afternoons and mornings, in the open and in secret— the murderous hunt, the hunted. The chase, the pursuit. The slaughter of brother by brother, the death of neighbour at the hands of neighbour. No, it wasn’t a riot. It was the desire to dream of a new world, searching for a new path, taking the wrong path and being destroyed indiscriminately.
The days have grown quieter since. The ones who have fled are untraceable. The ones who have died, we have ceased mourning them. Free Bangladesh has found its feet, over much blood, many corpses. Once again, adolescence, aimless adolescence, adolescence that has abandoned school and examinations, roams the streets, the tea-stalls, sees in an ancient library the name Jibanananda Das, takes out the book, naturally, this youth has already read ‘Bonolota Sen’—turns page after page standing in that library—on one of those pages was the poem about jackals— reads it instantly. But does not understand, not one word.
By now you must be getting impatient! The poem about which I’m writing reams, there’s no mention of being chased in that poem. In that poem there are those jackals who are born again and again, in every birth besotted by the hunt, in other words they are the ones who enter the jungle in search of prey—the jackals are the ones who will hunt their prey. No one is chasing the jackals! You could very well say I’ve got the wrong end of the stick!
I still don’t know for sure the right way to read or think of a poem.
Perhaps. I still don’t know for sure the right way to read or think of a poem. I only keep remembering that the next line says: ‘Once the day’s renowned light dies out’. Why is the day’s light ‘renowned’? Renowned indicates one whose deeds and tales of glory are known far and wide. Such a one is renowned, but daylight—this sunshine— how is that a celebrity? For some reason, it seems this is the story of an age. This light is the light of some ancient and flourishing civilization. The sunlight of civilization. Day becomes visible to us because the sun exists behind daylight. This sun is the achievement of mankind. Its rays tell us about the founding vision of the arts, agriculture, science. The rays that have spread its renown far and wide. But the way in which daylight dies out naturally, so too in the history of the world has civilization after civilization died out. Vast ages have arrived and dissolved. Those destroyed civilizations,
settlements, what did the survivors do—they looked for food elsewhere. Looked for refuge.
Where are all those missing refugees? Have they been able to conceal themselves at the foot of some mountain or in the heart of some forest? Have they found food? All those jackals?
Prehistoric man had to flee from wild beasts, forest-fires or other conflagrations, to escape from the ice-age they would flee through forest after forest, plain upon plain, they had still not learnt to make dwellings, caves or trees were their shelters, their children would freeze to death in their arms, who knows whether they had learnt to wear garments by then—but they had clashes with other tribes, enemies of the clan, even then. Even then, they knew what it was to be destroyed by attackers, to be chased into fleeing. Today, on the eighth of April, 1999, the newspapers speak about such flight. About such attacks. The dread of continued genocide in Kosovo. The General Secretary of the UN has said that the aim of the Serbians committing terrible atrocities on all those of Albanian descent is to completely exterminate all Albanians either by killing them or by expelling them from Kosovo. It is also true that there are no signs of almost 30,000 Albanian refugees who left Macedonia. Where are all those missing refugees? Have they been able to conceal themselves at the foot of some mountain or in the heart of some forest? Have they found food? All those jackals? Are the sounds of bullets fired by troops of soldiers still pursuing them? Army helicopters overhead, the sound of whirling blades?
The word ‘silently’ reminds me of so many things.
But I am not in any other reality. I’m in the midst of a harsh, clearly all-too-real life.
Paul Valéry once lamented, can a page of poetry ever aspire to a page of music?
I know nothing of all this, but looking at this short ten-line poem it seems to me there is a running commentary on civilization and the history of the world hidden away in it, in every gesture. For instance, the repetition of the word ‘birth’. The repetition reminds me of the age-old search for food, for shelter. But am I thinking too much about the whole question of being chased? Perhaps, but the thought of being chased occurred to me, seeing those creatures silently entering the forests and mountains after the day’s renowned light had died. Yes, it was as if I had seen them. The word ‘silently’ reminds me of so many things. Not just of fleeing after being thrashed, does it not convey a lying-in-ambush alertness? And just after this in the poem there is an amazing thing. A dash. ‘Enter silently—emerge.’ It seems as if they emerged from the jungle after many ages. As if another age passed—and what did they see when they emerged? They saw heaps of ice lying in the moonlight. The amazement of an incomparable, mysterious and terrifying beauty. Arriving at this point one gets a jolt. In this uncertain, inferior life of being beaten, and escaping, this is the first time they [the jackals] are standing before a kind of beauty. Beauty? Or is it terror, the terror of an unknown mysterious marvel! Would it be wrong to call this beauty? Whatever you choose to call it, it is a jolt. And that’s why, before Cheye dekhe borofer rashi/ Jyotsnay porey acche ‘They gaze on heaps of ice/ lying in the moonlight’ there is another dash. An abrupt halt. Followed by seeing. They entered the forest, days later they came out from another part of the forest, and then stood stunned before that wonder. It’s not that the poet does not express doubt whether those creatures were indeed amazed in the lines that follow, but more about that later. Before that let me say … seeing the heaps of brooding ice lit by the moon in the poem, I recall a scene from Stanley Kubrick’s film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. No. There’s no mountain, no ice in that. Do you remember, Aniruddha, there was a black monolith? Which kept recurring in the film? In one place a few men, primitive men, saw a bluish-black, quadrangular metallic pillar standing in the night, high above a grassless stony expanse? And in the background Strauss’s Blue Danube is playing? It’s amazing, Aniruddha, today while writing this letter, no matter how many times I read Cheye dekhe borofer rashi/ Jyotsnay porey acche each and every time I hear Blue Danube playing behind the heaps of ice. Do you remember, in that movie, every time the black monolith appeared, Blue Danube played in the background? Yes, Aniruddha, this is that movie in which a man, David Bowman, an astronaut, ends up going back to the form of a foetus. Because in the course of his space travel he had arrived at another reality. Just before that he had seen it floating in the night sky, that black monolith—before the dawn of civilization, the way primitive man had gazed. But I am not in any other reality. I’m in the midst of a harsh, clearly all-tooreal life. Then why is it whenever I look at that line, Blue Danube rings out? Amir Khan apparently once told one of his close acquaintances (if I remember right he was practising kedar raag that day), whenever he played a particular note, the peaks of Mt Kailash floated before his eyes. Can this be true, then, that some of Jibanananda Das’s poems can, through their words, summon up scenes and even the secret memories of music? A secret alliteration, the effect or the hum that is created through the similarity of sounds, I’m talking about that. He’s done that a lot. Here’s one, Shanto haat, chokhe taar bikeler moton otol/ kichu acche ‘Peaceful hands, in her eyes something unfathomable as evening’ […] it’s made in such a way, we don’t worry about how the evening could be unfathomable, the line enters one’s head for good, we repeat it in our minds, then one day, in the face of an evening sun, gazing into that girl’s eyes you think, truly, there’s something unfathomable as evening in these eyes—in the hands lying in her lap, the thin black band of a wristwatch around one of them—[…] am I straying away from the subject? Yes, I’m always in danger of doing that, but let me say just this, there are amazing examples of hidden alliteration in Jibanananda’s poems and they are not there to flaunt the flash of alliteration, the jingle-jangle of sound—they are there on account of the poem’s subjects, images, the material of life. […] with sound he weaves an atmosphere in your head. It’s not the excitement and dizzying clink of external rhymes—it’s bringing the inner essence of a word into its sound […] There are numerous such examples scattered all through Jibanananda’s poems. But I’m saying something else. There may be a reason why Blue Danube floats into my mind when I read that line… Could it be that in Jibanananda’s poems, his images, sounds and life-materials sometimes raid the store of memories about music and movies in somebody’s subconscious? It seems Paul Valéry once lamented, can a page of poetry ever aspire to a page of music?
The poet wants to seize the impossible.
Valéry knew it cannot, so do we. But the poet wants to seize the impossible—that’s why he and his friend Mallarmé, they emphasized the words and sounds of a poem. I don’t know French, so I haven’t read the original. Do such fine nuances come into the translation? I don’t know. Sunil Gangopadhyay’s book Poems of Other Countries has an amazing piece of news about one of Valéry’s poems.
In that poem a girl is lying down. She is, most likely, nude. In the last line of the poem one letter has been used twice—that letter looks like the English ‘V’. The translator says, this sign reminds you of the V of her belly. Just imagine. Given that the poem has a nude girl lying in it—the poet is arranging the words and letters in such a way, the reader’s eye will see the triangle of the V again and again. Do you remember, ‘As if the eyes, too, experience the lightning of rhyme’? Isn’t it amazing? No, no, I’m not suggesting for a moment that there is any resemblance between Jibanananda and Valéry and Mallarmé. What I want to say is this— over the ages, poets have wanted to use the rhythms and sound-properties of their own languages in different ways. Because the store of sound, the strength of rhyme, these are the poet’s treasures, if they can be used. […] As Jibanananda said about poetry… ‘The meaning may be understood later!’ […] the poet has used these sounds, rhyming words, images for his subject. To make his subject more certain, to give it a many-layered, particular meaning. […] These things are not gimmicks piled on from the outside. This is newness earned after much austerity. This is true newness.
When Beethoven composed the Moonlight Sona
ta to explain moonlight to his friend’s blind-frombirth daughter, he had wanted to touch that lit-up space inside her perpetual darkness.
[…] When Beethoven composed the Moonlight Sonata to explain moonlight to his friend’s blind-from-birth daughter, he had wanted to touch that lit-up space inside her perpetual darkness. And we can say that the space that was awakened inside Beethoven himself—sometimes Jibanananda’s poems can capture that space. The way he does in the poem about the jackals.
This is the space that is never destroyed. That remains even after age upon age is destroyed. Inside every human. […] It’s worth noticing, he doesn’t use the word ‘man’, he uses ‘mankind’. […] The boundary of the word ‘man’—the word ‘mankind’ crosses that boundary and attempts to go towards a kind of eternal existence. […] It’s there in the first line, isn’t it, ‘jonmo jonmo’! In other words in life after life after life. In hundreds and thousands of lifetimes.
Now I’m thinking of the Jataka Tales! I don’t know why so many absurd upsidedown things enter my mind on reading a single poem. Is there a fear here of going away from the poem? So be it. […] in the Jataka Tales there are stories about different incarnations, the crab, other creatures. The same soul is reborn as a human—such a man can remember things about his previous lives. That’s why he’s called Jatiswar (the one who remembers his past lives).
Aniruddha, this poem by Jibanananda, is a poem from the consciousness of such a Jatiswar. […] the word atma contains mind, awareness, heart, and apart from all this one more thing. The atma cannot be destroyed, that’s also what we are told. […] in birth after birth it takes on a new form. […] you will say, what of the person who does not believe in the atma and rebirth.
