by Joy Goswami
It’s about how a word or a line can reach such a high level. That’s what the poet thinks. How much work can he get one word to do?
This is not about belief or disbelief. It’s about how a word or a line can reach such a high level. That’s what the poet thinks. How much work can he get one word to do?
[…] but all those jackals, the ones who cannot express themselves—if wonder and amazement had exploded inside them then— did that wonder reach them? I cannot quite tell. If not their heart-machines, their knowledge, if that stayed at the animal-stage, and jolted by experience, yes, the experience of seeing heaps of ice lying in the moonlight, that jolt, if it made them ascend a step or two […] would even they, all those jackals, would they to some extent gain the power to express themselves? Would, then, that thing called ‘wonder’ be born in them? Explode? Would they, then, raise their faces to the sky and call out? The way they called every three hours from the swampy jungle behind our house?
I don’t know. And I admit, the two lines that end the poem, even those I do not understand. […] the poem I’ve known by heart for 27 years has not completely come within my grasp. In spite of that, do you know why I thought and wrote so many things? Because of those last two words, snayur andhare, the darkness of the nerve vessel […] in that darkness the memoirs of those who remember our past lives are hidden. Are hidden the basest of base instincts. Is it a fear of some kind?
[…]
PS:
Even so, they too had witnessed it. Were unable to say what they had seen… Does that mean Jibanananda’s poems can be true in a completely different universe?
I’m troubling you again. Something happened after I finished this letter to you. I was watching Discovery Channel around one a.m. It was a show about a massive meteor that fell into the Sea of Mexico 65 lakh years ago. It was the Jurassic Age. The dinosaurs were wiped out … the effect was the same as if many hydrogen bombs had been exploded simultaneously. […] A mushroom cloud enveloped the entire planet. It rained sulphuric acid. Particles of radium fell incessantly from the sky. There was a huge crater at the spot where the meteor fell. The water had risen onto land. It was natural that the dinosaurs were wiped out by such a great cataclysm. […] When the meteor entered the atmosphere, it instantly caught fire. Such a big meteor, the commentary said, perhaps even the dinosaurs had seen its fiery tail filling the sky for one fraction of a second. […] I remembered ‘If all that heart-gear were suddenly revealed/ in a soul akin to man’s’—no longer the jackals’. A species of primeval reptile. Even so, they too had witnessed it. Were unable to say what they had seen…
Today, after so many years, men saw the meteor the dinosaurs had seen. […] the earth, they said, became silent. Stayed that way for five thousand years. Then as per its own laws one day the earth recovered. Seeds sprouted. Grass grew.
Does that mean Jibanananda’s poems can be true in a completely different universe?
When Jibanananda wrote this poem in the ’40s—was Discovery Channel around? Were there dinosaurs generated by computer-graphics? No! Does that mean Jibanananda’s poems can be true in a completely different universe? The way life on earth has remained despite so many upheavals, counter-strikes, contrary situations? In just that way?
Jibanananda’s poems advance by sending ripples in different directions.
On Jibanananda Das:
The concluding verses from Joy Goswami’s poem ‘Conclusion’
The sound of villages falling makes another man rise
He stands at the edge of a field. Birds’ nests in his hair, grass
In the darkness he was all these days grass among grass
Grass in his hair, grass in his eyes, grass on his back his shoulders, just grass
No one notices, no one recognizes him, not even this time
At the edge of blood and fire, he takes the ridged path along the field
Through a drizzling rain, absentmindedly, his head lowered
He walks towards the next hundred years, Jibanananda Das.
*
I look behind me and see, the writer is nowhere to be seen. The writer has been erased.
On truth and time in
Jibanananda Das’s poetry:
Jibanananda’s poems advance by sending ripples in different directions. […] A poet from the generation after Jibanananda wrote in the preface of his book: ‘Trying to write the truth in my poems, I have seen that the poem’s truth keeps changing.’ Jibanananda’s poems touch with both hands the truth that changes every instant, and the constant truth. The way he touches two kinds of time. Time present and time immemorial. Today we know time immemorial was always there beside him. But he stood in the present. And regularly travelled to and fro. And he could do this by taking words quite far away from the current meaning. Sometimes he would leave behind a word he had put to bed. ‘Noiseless’. He would take them towards noiselessness. Which is why it takes a while to understand his poems. Repeating them in one’s mind, reciting them again and again, suddenly the light burns. […] Jibanananda takes me by the hand, past the jungles, over the rivers, he brings me into a field. Then, I run, I run towards the horizon, I lose myself there. […] I look behind me and see, the writer is nowhere to be seen. The writer has been erased. That limitlessness is now mine. I am someone else then. Someone who sees the black waves of the sea stretching on either side. Who, crossing hordes of dead and wounded soldiers, comprehends darkness, as infinite as constellated-space. Who can hear the songs of the innocent, the tired, the soul-seeker … Who understands how a forest is born from a seed. Who can see the shore of time. And before whom at the most desolate moment of night the chariot of history descends slowly, very slowly. […] Life was ruthless to him. Arid on the outside. A life of disgrace, sometimes insult. Even poverty. He wrote distressed letters for four-five hundred rupees to Sanjay Bhattacharya: ‘Kindly make arrangements.’ Wrote: ‘I’ll repay all the money with my writing. Or else cash.’ Because both a job and a place to live were uncertain. All that was certain was his writing. Because time immemorial was always beside him. One day that time dragged him under a tram, but before that it made him write all those poems, which, like the polar seas, were hard on the outside, bottomless on the inside, sometimes icy-grey, whose entire mystery has not been salvaged even today.
On Jibanananda Das’s most loved, perhaps most known poem ‘Bonolota Sen’:
Perhaps coming to this poem we find a kind of sanctuary, the sanctuary of a relationship, the one we yearn for all our lives.
At the age of 17-18, after getting that poetry book, Bonolota Sen pervaded my mind. What was I thinking? Now I know. I was thinking, there must be someone like this, somewhere. There has to be. Waiting for me, for life. She is somewhere. I will meet her sometime. […] it wasn’t a firm belief or anything of that kind. Just a loose, light imagining. […] And this she, this woman, I can’t quite call her a girl—she’s not a young girl, she is a woman advancing towards her middle age, Bonolota Sen, there’s not the slightest clink of amorousness about her posture. There is such a peaceful Bengali depth that sitting before it makes one feel one has arrived beside a peaceful pond surrounded by trees. […] Perhaps coming to this poem we find a kind of sanctuary, the sanctuary of a relationship, the one we yearn for all our lives. And despite knowing we will not find it, we long for it in an indistinct inchoate way. […] Whether it is possible in real life or not, Jibanananda has created for us this oasis called Bonolota Sen. When we get tired, thirsty, we sit there. We find a few moments of peace.
On Jibanananda Das’s understanding of history:
Jibanananda’s understanding of history disseminates a notion of profound distance. Simultaneously, the mind walks for a thousand years, it’s as if my age increases in reverse, as I read Jibanananda. And in fact, even the giver of a few moments of peace, Bonolota Sen, sits at a distance—as if one is in two minds about getting too close to her.
On Shakti Chattopadhyay:
Even now when I travel by t
rain or bus, and see jungles in the distance, I don’t see trees, I see Shakti Chattopadhyay. I see tree, bird, grain, earth, water and drought—everywhere, he stands, Shakti, with his poems.
All the poet has in this world is his poetic imagination.
On prizes:
Just as the madman has brought nothing but his madness to the insane asylum, all the poet has in this world is his poetic imagination. Prizes and bouquets, gatherings and garlands are like that water pitcher and chair [in the madman’s room]—the property of society. Why does the poet think they are his? After all, the poet hasn’t lost his mind.
On rhyme:
Rhyme is the force of a current that awakes from inside the body.
On art:
Art is not some external thing. When it wakes, it wakes from within the body. […] with the hot iron of that art within him the poet is as helpless as any human.
On love and relationships:
If the outside feels too claustrophobic, if you want to come inwards away from the outside world, how will you come? Over the bridge of love. Then again, if the inner world reaches a state of being shut-in, how will you leave for the outer world? Over the same bridge. Holding on to the thread of relationships.
Music and poetry are co-pilgrims on the path of the same faith.
On defeat:
Writing poetry is a game of the unexpected. What may happen at which instant in the course of writing, often even the writer himself does not know. The same can be said about great musicians. […] to me, music and poetry are co-pilgrims on the path of the same faith. […] Can there be a greater defeat for the writer than at the hands of his own writing?
On victory:
In plain Bengali joy means victory. […] And, in the plain small literary world of plain Bengali, joy means a jhola-carrying panjabiwearing bearded bespectacled middle-aged poet, whose brow is always slightly creased. […] When I reach a state of some contentment I will think I’ve won a great deal. If I’m in a spot of trouble I will think I’m losing a lot.
If this is victory and if this is defeat, what remains for oneself? Sitting at one’s writing table at night, looking out of the window what will one think, for oneself?
Rhyme arrives unwanted. Without any begging or pleading, end-rhymes arrive and say: At your service.
On habit:
After writing for a long time the words come from habit. Rhyme arrives unwanted. Without any begging or pleading, end-rhymes arrive and say: At your service. After having lived with language for so long, the kind of problems that present themselves while writing are familiar, recognizable. I solve them in almost the same way, the way I did last to last to last time. In other words, it’s the force of habit that makes writing happen, and it’s competence that brings in a glossy effect. But where is that experience of standing face-to-face with the unknown?
The danger comes from within, wearing the garb of competence, wearing the mask of dexterity, with the poison-bowl of easy habit in hand.
It is then that this art of words, creating poems or literature, truly becomes a game of the unexpected, just like life.
On uncertainty and the unexpected:
The writer himself is unaware what future there is for his writing. […] The moment the writer has chosen his destination the writing may start behaving exactly the way it likes. […] Looking at four lines of a poem written this minute the poet may think, did I write them? Where were they all this while? […] Does what I’ve written make sense? […] On one hand the writer’s dark inner depths are aroused, desirous of seeing the face of some new form, on the other hand his old beliefs about literature don’t want to move aside. […] What will he hold on to, what will he throw away? It is then that this art of words, creating poems or literature, truly becomes a game of the unexpected, just like life. The writer cannot tell if he is right or wrong. That’s why he keeps crossing and cutting things out. Our two greatest poets, Rabindranath and Jibanananda, have left proof of this in their manuscripts. The extent to which they are certain, in their letters or essays, in writing about poetry—if you see their manuscripts it becomes clear that while writing poems they were both defenseless to that very extent. They could never be certain in this matter of using words. So they kept moving towards the unknown, cutting and crossing out lines as they went. Because, like Oedipus, the writer wants to say, I have to know what the truth is. For that he has to learn to stand in opposition to himself.
To learn this, a certain kind of resolve is needed. Not an obstinacy. That implies a certain pigheadedness that is blind, irrational. Resolve implies a deliberation, a firm faith in thinking it through beforehand, and the suggestion of hard work.
On honesty and the unforeseen:
I look for poems which are not merely easy. Those which blend the easy and the unforeseen. And in such a natural manner, there is no dissimulation in it. The way it is in dreams.
When a poet becomes desperate to make his poems intelligible to all, the words keep getting diluted.
What happens in dreams? We believe, in the blink of an eye, the unforeseen. […] The utter believability and wonder at the heart of dreams is the beauty and essential magic of Benoy Majumdar’s poetry. […] When a poet becomes desperate to make his poems intelligible to all, the words keep getting diluted. Words lose their codes and their density, become diluted and then evaporate. That didn’t happen in Benoy [Majumdar]’s case, because nowhere in his poetry, unconsciously or consciously, is there the slightest dissimulation.
And that’s precisely why we will find it hard to accept them. Because in our personal and social lives we are constantly pretending. We will find it hard to acknowledge them, those poems. Those which are terrifyingly honest. There is this line in Jibanananda’s poem, ‘Having loved her I have become terrifyingly honest—!’ Benoy has been honest with his poetry in just that way. Helplessly honest.
On god:
I believe in god. My prayers are the poems of many poets.
Notes
Beyond the Reach of the Word
1Arundhathi Subramaniam in her introduction to Joy Goswami on Poetry International Web
2Joy Goswami’s essay, ‘The Earth’s Blood-circulation’
3Shankho Ghosh’s essay, ‘The Divine Flame of Words’
4Joy Goswami’s essay, ‘Seeing through Words’
5A phrase from W.N. Herbert’s poem ‘Hieroglyphic’ which I once translated into Bangla as a sort of illuminatory companion text to Joy Goswami’s poem ‘To You, Ironhawk’
6On the poet Benoy Majumdar, from the book Akoshmiker Khela (Game of the Unexpected)
7In his essay, ‘Sheshjiboner Stob’ (‘In Praise of the Final Years of Life’)
8Joy Goswami’s essay on the poet Benoy Majumdar, ‘Creating the Sky’
9Joy Goswami’s essay, ‘Seeing through Words’
10Joy Goswami’s essay, ‘To Create Beauty Is to Wage a Silent War’
11In his essay, ‘Shomoy Thekey Egiye’ (‘Ahead of Their Time’)
12Turn to the PS section for extracts from this essay
13See the Afterword to Moutat Moheswar, as well as my 2005 interview with the poet
14Joy Goswami’s essay, ‘Pothcholti Dhooper Gondho’ (‘Passing by the Aroma of Incense’)
15Joy Goswami’s essay, ‘The Earth’s Blood-circulation’
16Joy Goswami’s essay, ‘Passing by the Aroma of Incense’
17Joy Goswami’s essay ‘Oporajito Kobita’ (‘Undefeated Poems’) on the poets Bhaskar Chakraborty, Shankho Ghosh, Alok Sarkar, Alok Ranjan Dasgupta, Sunil Gangopadhyay, Utpal Kumar Basu, Subhash Mukhopadhyay, Nirendranath Chakravarti, Al Mahmud, Buddhadev Bose
18A reference from Joy Goswami’s essay, ‘Passing by the Aroma of Incense’
19With reference to a poem by Shakti Chattopadhyay
20That evocative idea in Robert Bly’s essay, ‘The Eight Stages of Translation’
21Robert Bly
22From my second poetry book, Absent Muses
23‘
Escape route’, from Joy Goswami’s Du Dondo Phowara Matro
NOTES ON POEMS
‘Finale’, Surjo-Pora Chhai: I see the writing/Hasn’t paused for a second: After composing the Mahabharata, Ved Vyasa was wondering how to transmit it in entirety to his disciples. That’s when Lord Brahma appeared to him and said, call upon Ganesha, he will be your amanuensis. When Vyasa requested Ganesha to be his scribe, Ganesha agreed, saying, I am completely at your disposal, but my writing will not stop for a second.
Poem No. 14, Moutat Moheswar: who hopes against hope: This line is both a homage to and a slight spin-off on a phrase in a devotional song by Ramprasad Sen (1720-1781), a Bengali Sakta poet. A particularly distinguished name in the tradition of Indian bhakti literature, this eighteenth-century poet is famous for his compositions of sakta songs in common speech, in which a rare union of theory with emotion, knowledge with devotion, revolution with surrender can be found. In Ramprasad’s lyric (song no. 29 from Ramprasadi edited by Sarbananda Chaudhuri [Sahitya Akademi, 2007]), the line plays on the word asha which, depending on how it is spelt, means ‘hope’ or ‘coming’. The line roughly translates as ‘All that became of the hope of your coming was the coming of hope’.
Poem No. 51, Moutat Moheswar: The sun hidden under slips of straw!: This is a reference to the discovery, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, of a medieval Bengali text, Srikrishnakirtan (Devotional Songs to Krishna). The story goes that a gentleman named Basanta Ranjan Ray Bidyut Vallabh found this manuscript tucked away in the thatched roof of a cowshed in the village of Kankilla near Bishnupur, and with that discovery ended three to four centuries of ‘the dark ages’ in Bengali language and literature. The poems in this text, authorship of which is attributed to Bodu Chandidas, present (in a fusion of folk and Puranic elements) stories from the various stages of Krishna’s earthly existence, his attraction for, and later disenchantment with, Radha.
