Nirodbaran, like many others, found
Jyotirmoyee’s poems to be too obscure and abstruse. Quite often he would send
her poems to Sri Aurobindo who would patiently explain the inner meaning of the
poems. One such poem (translated into English by Arabinda Basu) is quoted below
along with the discussion Nirodbaran had regarding this poem with Sri
Aurobindo.
Life’s bitter shower brims over the
cup of nectar,
Drinking that You became
Blue-throated
And left on the paths of the
brittle shore,
In the hidden hem of ambrosia,
The poison in the lips of the
enchantress.
To the first note of the flute of
wind above
That brought from an unknown
luminous divine sun
The ruthless hour of thunder to the
shore of birth,
The world offered its all, emptying
its heart slowly.
The solitary Player in the dream of
Deity’s body,
The Being of beginningless creation
Descends into the play of Light
Like a blossom in flowering sap.
Earth’s Word-Ganga suddenly chose
The rite of purification in its
Force.
‘Nirodbaran: Guru, I take sudhāpātra [cup of nectar] as the vessel
of the soul or higher something and jeevan
āsār [life’s bitter shower] as something like poison—tears and tears of
life (physical) which someone drinks. Then He leaves this poison of mohini [enchantress] (as with desires,
etc) in the hem of nectar of the brittle physical.
Sri Aurobindo: All here should be
the vessel of nectar, ie of Ananda, but the poison of pain and suffering has
been poured into it as the jeevan āsār.
This is the poison of desire and the lower pressure.
mohinir ādherer bish [the poison in the lips of the enchantress, one word not
distinct]—and the physical which is in its proper right the secret hem of the
immortal Ananda has that left upon all its ways to spoil the delight of life.
It is the drinking of this poison that has left the mark in the throat of the
Godhead.
Nirodbaran: Then what happens?
Where is the link? Why the wind, because it carries the sound? Does vajrer prahar [the ruthless hour of
thunder] stand for something arduous and fiery for which the earth must do
tapasya—no tamas?
Sri Aurobindo: The first sound of
the flute brought by the wind from above to the shore of birth brought the
stern hour of the vajra from the
unknown because the world has to deliver itself from desires by a severe
endeavour. The world makes the surrender of everything and as a result the
Spirit, the Being of the beginningless Creation descends from above with the
manifestation and the play of Light. It was always secretly there in the body’s
dream of the Godhead dwelling in and overshadowing it but now it manifests and
brings down its unveiled nature. In the power of this descent the Earth [this
part of Sri Aurobindo’s writing is uncertain] stream inspired knowledge shabda [sound] means expression of the
truth, its voice takes up the work of prakshālan
[purification].
Nirodbaran: What next? devatār deha-swapna [dream of deity’s
body]. Why devatā? Unless it means
that this dharani [earth] is dreaming
of having bodies with Gods. If so, then because of this surrender, the anādi sattā [beginningless Being] comes
over as a response like a kusum
[flower]! Now I stumble if I haven’t done it so far.
Sri Aurobindo: I am afraid you
have. Your interpretation is rather forced and laboured.
Nirodbaran: This shabda gangā [word-gangā] accepts the
bathing of a new life in its ojas
[Force]. This sahasa [suddenly] seems
rather inappropriate, for the process is not sudden.
Sri Aurobindo: Not at all. What is
envisaged is a sudden descent of Light and manifestation and the waters of the
Truth washing clean all the beings due to the vajrer prahar and sarvasya
sampilo [offered everything]. That may take long, but the result of the
Descent can be rapid and sudden.
Nirodbaran: Extremely difficult, Sir!
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, unless one
catches the clue…Very fine indeed—she has got a new imspiration.
Nirodbaran: Well, “has that left”
by whom? The text says neelkantha
[blue-throated] has left it from his vaksha
[chest]. Why? Why has he drunk the poison and again left it? Because the world
may develop itself from these desires by tapasya?
Sri Aurobindo: You don’t seem to
have at all understood the central idea. Existence is in its proper nature a
play, an outflow of Nature. What is here in the life is the Godhead devatā [god]. But owing to Ignorance and
Darkness the wine of life is poisoned; it is not nectar, but poison poured in
the nectar cup. The Godhead within drinks that and by his drinking the
transformation of the deformed existence becomes (achievable). But it is not
done at once. The poison spreads from the vital which has drunk it into the
ways of life. There is no question of why or of an intention. It is so as a
fact.
I said spoil the delight of life
because life which ought to be delight if all had been in harmony is obviously
spoilt by the poison of desire. You suppose that the poison is transformed by
the Godhead drinking and is poured as nectar on the path but that is absurd
because one would not then speak of poison; it would no longer be poison; it
would be nectar and there would be no need of vajrer prahar or prakshalan
or anything else. The [ms illegible] could have been done.
Nirodbaran: And why proper right?
Because the proper right of the world is the right of Ananda and others being
admixtures or perversions?
Sri Aurobindo: If we accept the
idea on which the joy is founded it is that the Godhead is within and Ananda is
the basis of existence and desire and sorrow are a perversion of the Ignorance
(that is what the Upanishads say) then obviously Ananda is the proper right of
the soul and of life.
Nirodbaran: I’m afraid I have not
yet understood the central idea nor the peripheral. How can I if you bring all
metaphysics in Poetry?
Sri Aurobindo: It is not
metaphysics; it is a fact of existence. If it is not what are we all doing
here? It would be better to go to
Nirodbaran: What I don’t understand
is that if the Godhead drinks the poison, well, it is finished! How can it
spread again into the ways of life? Unless He has vomited or excreted it? By
virtue of His drinking the poison the transformation becomes inevitable though
it may take time. All this is clear.
Sri Aurobindo: The Godhead is the
Godhead in life, man—not some immaculate Godhead in heaven; He takes the
suffering into himself; it is the stain on his divinity (external mind). It
spreads through his vaksha (vital
emotional)—it emanates out of it into the surroundings. But still, since he has
drunk (ie accepted it) that fact makes the overcoming of it an inevitable
necessity. You seem to be thinking of some high and dry Godhead who is not
here. When the Godhead accepts it, life has to accept it too, but for
transformation, no longer for indulgence.
Nirodbaran: Is it then something
like driving from mind, going to the vital→physical→subconscient→inconscient?
Sri Aurobindo: Nonsense, sir. That
happens when one rejects. The Godhead has drunk it, not thrown it out by
rejection. If he had he would have first pushed the cup away and the wine would
have spread in that way.
Nirodbaran: Once you say the
Godhead drinks and then the vital drinks. Puzzling, Sir!
Sri Aurobindo: The Godhead has a vaksha according to the poem—then he
must have a vital.
Nirodbaran: Is the Godhead in the
vital? If you explain this knot, nothing else remains.
Sri Aurobindo: The Godhead is
everywhere in the mental, vital, physical—wherever there is existence. [1]
Jyotirmoyee also penned lyrics for
Dilip Kumar Roy who set tune to them and sang them in his musical soirees (two
of such songs mamo jibon majhe and jokhon gahe neelpori which were recorded
in the gramophone and sung by his pupil Uma Bose were extremely popular in that
era). She also dabbled in prose and produced a number of remarkable short
stories and novels; in 1936 her first book—a collection of her short
stories—titled Bilet Deshta Matir
[meaning, The Foreign Land is made of
soil] was published. The book consisted of six stories—four of which dealt with
foreign culture, character of foreigners and racial discrimination practised by
them—and the remaining two stories narrated two tragic tales in the background
of the rural societies of Bengal. Since she had witnessed the life-style of
rural
Jyotirmoyee, after attaining utmost
perfection in sonnets and lyrics, aspired to compose some pieces of poetry in
blank verse and was also desirous to pen an epic. She had a regular
correspondence with Sri Aurobindo through which she conveyed her queries to the
Guru and received his reply. We quote some of the letters she had written to
Sri Aurobindo and the replies she received.
Q: What is the epic style? What
elements are required for successful blank verse?
A: I spoke of epic style because
you talked of austerity and force. Special austerity and ojas needed for epic
style, and necessary in other blank verse.
Q: Speak of English blank verse, if
you plead ignorance of Bengali.
A: Good Lord! you don’t want me to
expatriate on all that now? I believe I wrote about it to Amal—I mean for
English blank verse. For Bengali I decline all authority.’ (20 April 1937)
Q: How may I learn the epic style
of blank verse?
A: I suppose it is best done by
reading the epic writers until you get the epic rush or sweep.
Epic writing needs a sustained
energy of rhythm and word which is not easy to get or maintain. I am not sure
whether you can get it now. I think you would first have to practise
maintaining the level of the more energetic among the lines you have been writing.
I have doubly marked the lines that seem to me to have the necessary epic
elevation in 49, 51 [the two instalments] and this last one so as to indicate
the kind of line I mean.’ (3 May 1937)
Q: Is your Love and Death an epic, and Urvasie
and Baji Prabhou?
A: Love and Death is epic in long passages. Urvasie is written on the epic model. Baji Prabhou is not epic in style or rhythm.
Q: Are your 12 recent poems too in
epic style?
A: No, they are lyrical, though
sometimes there may come in an epic revelation.
Q: Will Paradise Lost and Paradise
Regained help? Kindly mention all the epic writers in all the languages—it
is good to know, at least.
A:
In English Paradise Lost and Keats’s Hyperion
(unfinished) are the two chief epics. In Sanskrit Mahabharat, Ramayan,
Kalidasa’s Kumar Sambhav, Bharati’s Kiratarjuniya. In Bengali Meghnadbadh. In Italian Dante’s Divine Comedy and Tasso’s (I have
forgotten the name for the moment [Hierosolyma
Liberatea]) are in epic cast. In Greek of course Homer, in Latin Virgil.
There are other poems which attempt the epic style, but are not among the
masterpieces. There are also primitive epics in German and Finnish (Nibelungenlied, Kalevala)— (3 May 1937)
Q: Is there a difference between
blank verse and poetry which is quite epic and blank verse and poetry which is
written only in the epic style, model of manner?
A: I don’t quite understand the
point of the question. Poetry is epic or it is not. There may be differences of
elevation in the epic style, but this seems to be distinction without a
difference.
Q: Surely there must be some
difference between an epic, true and genuine throughout and a poem which is
only in the epic style or has the epic tone?
A: An epic is a long poem usually
narrative on a great subject written in a style and rhythm that is of a high
nobility or sublime. But short poems, a sonnet for instance can be in the epic
style or tone, e.g. some of Milton’s or Meredith’s sonnet on Lucifer or, as far
as I can remember it, Shelley’s on Ozymandias.
Q: What are the qualities or
characteristics that tell one—“This is an epic”?
A: I think the formula I have given
is the only possible definition. Apart from that, each epic poet has his own
qualities and characteristics that differ widely from others. For the rest one
can feel what is the epic nobility or sublimity, one can’t very well analyse
it.
Q: In Sanskrit epics, eg Kumarsambhavam, what has made up the
rhythm? And how does it sound so grave, lofty, wide and deep?
A: It is a characteristic that
comes natural to Sanskrit written in the classical style.
Q: How can one have all these
qualities together?
A: Why not? They are not
incompatible qualities.
Q: English seems to have the
necessary tone more easily, but is it possible in Bengali?
A: I don’t know why it shouldn’t
be. Madhusudan’s style is a lofty epical style; it is not really grave and deep
because his mind was not grave or deep—but that was the defect of the poet, not
necessarily an incapacity of the language.
Q: Kumarsambhavam was my textbook in IA, but I have not read all of
it. May I ask Kapali Shastri to help me read it?
A: I don’t know if it is necessary
for a poetic, not scholarly reading of the poem. It is only the 1st seven
cantos that need be read.
Q: Please don’t abbreviate your
answers if there is a lot to say. I would like to know from you everything
about an epic.
A: That would take too long. (11
May 1937)
Q: Are the other cantos (after the
8 or 7) of Kumarsambhavam not so
good?
A: Many say they are not
Kalidasa’s. If they are his, they are probably unrevised, without the
perfecting touches.
Q: To read with KS [Kapali Shastry]
I did not think of Kumarsambhavam but
Ramayan, Mahabharat etc. Shall I be able to read them by myself?
A: That I can’t say. What I meant
was there need be no scholarly study of Sanskrit. (12 May 1937)
Q: I would like my present poems
come in a few lines, but the epical tone to be more and more perfect every day.
A: The epic movement is something
that flows; it may not be good to try to shut it into a few lines. There might
be a danger of making something too compact. If that can be avoided, then of
course it is better to write a few lines with a heightened epic tone than many
with the lesser tone. (13 May 1937)
Q: Please tell me why I often jump
back to the sonnet source instead of steadily keeping to the epic source. The
more I try to be ‘fine’ the more I lose the epic source.
A: It is a matter of habit. Also
the attempt to be “fine” is not good for epic writing. None of the great poets
wrote “finely”— nobility or power or a clear and great strength of style and
substance and spirit is their characteristic. (27 May 1937)
Q: Here is a poem. This attempt
sounds sonnet-like. Does it not?
A: The style and verse are epic—but
there is something in the substance that is not epic. It is here that the main
defect lies. Perhaps if you tried to write short narratives in the epic style,
this might go. In the epic there must be a definite subject worked out with a
clear beginning and end. (2 June 1937)
Q: By narrative did you mean a
story? Meanwhile I wrote this piece of a few lines which does not seem
successful as an epic.
A: It is not epic, but it is
excellent narrative poetry. It is a good exercise for the building necessary
for an epic. (3 June 1937)
Q: Here is the continuation, not
epic in tone. Is there something in the manner of telling also that hinders a
narrative from being an epic?
A: It is the level of the style and
the spirit in the writing that differs.
Q: How can I write a narrative in
the epic style?
A: There is no how. It is a power
that comes.
Q: P says he is going to write an
article on “the only vernacular epic”, Tulsi
Ramayan in Hindi. But Meghnadbadh
is an epic too in a vernacular. How can he then say such a thing? Won’t it be
wrong to write like that publicly?
A: Of course, it is a wrong idea.
There is not only Meghnadbadh but
Kamban’s Ramayan in Tamil—but I
suppose P knows neither Bengali nor Tamil. (4 June 1937)
Q: As narrative poetry and epic are
not the same, why should the former give me a training in the latter? Many have
written narratives but that did not lead them to an epic?
A: It is necessary to be able to
work out a subject at length in a clear well-built way—epic is usually of a
narrative build, so narrative poetry is the best training for that. The
narrative writers you speak of did not aspire to be epic poets. (6 June 1937)
Q: Is your Love and Death a narrative poem?
A: Certainly.
Q: Narratives then can be made or
written very poetically, not like a mere fact-to-fact story telling?
A: But what do you mean by
poetically? A fact to fact story telling can be very poetic. Poetry is poetic
whether it is put in simple language or freely adorned with images and rich
phrases. The latter kind is not the only “poetic” poetry nor is necessarily the
best. Homer is very direct and simple; Virgil less so but still is restrained
in his diction; Keats tends always to richness; but one cannot say that Keats
is poetic and Homer and Virgil are not. The rich style has this danger that it
may drown the narration so that its outlines are no longer clear. This is what
has happened with Shakespeare’s Venus and
Adonis and Lucrece; so that
Shakespeare cannot be called a great narrative poet… (13 June 1937) [3]
References
[1] A Bengali Lyrical Poem by Jyotirmoyee, Mother India, August 1998, pp. 525-528
[2] Pratibha Bose, Lekhika Jyotirmoyee Devi, 2 October 1982
issue of Desh magazine
[3] Nirodbaran (edited) Jyotirmoyeer Kabyo-Sankhalan, pp.
142-147