(28) _European Music_
When I was in Brighton I once went to hear some Prima Donna. I forget
her name. It may have been Madame Neilson or Madame Albani. Never before
had I come across such an extraordinary command over the voice. Even our
best singers cannot hide their sense of effort; nor are they ashamed to
bring out, as best they can, top notes or bass notes beyond their proper
register. In our country the understanding portion of the audience think
no harm in keeping the performance up to standard by dint of their own
imagination. For the same reason they do not mind any harshness of voice
or uncouthness of gesture in the exponent of a perfectly formed melody;
on the contrary, they seem sometimes to be of opinion that such minor
external defects serve better to set off the internal perfection of the
composition,--as with the outward poverty of the Great Ascetic,
Mahadeva, whose divinity shines forth naked.
This feeling seems entirely wanting in Europe. There, outward
embellishment must be perfect in every detail, and the least defect
stands shamed and unable to face the public gaze. In our musical
gatherings nothing is thought of spending half-an-hour in tuning up the
_Tanpuras_, or hammering into tone the drums, little and big. In Europe
such duties are performed beforehand, behind the scenes, for all that
comes in front must be faultless. There is thus no room for any weak
spot in the singer's voice. In our country a correct and artistic
exposition[44] of the melody is the main object, thereon is concentrated
all the effort. In Europe the voice is the object of culture, and with
it they perform impossibilities. In our country the virtuoso is
satisfied if he has heard the song; in Europe, they go to hear the
singer.
That is what I saw that day in Brighton. To me it was as good as a
circus. But, admire the performance as I did, I could not appreciate the
song. I could hardly keep from laughing when some of the _cadenzas_
imitated the warbling of birds. I felt all the time that it was a
misapplication of the human voice. When it came to the turn of a male
singer I was considerably relieved. I specially liked the tenor voices
which had more of human flesh and blood in them, and seemed less like
the disembodied lament of a forlorn spirit.
After this, as I went on hearing and learning more and more of European
music, I began to get into the spirit of it; but up to now I am
convinced that our music and theirs abide in altogether different
apartments, and do not gain entry to the heart by the self-same door.
European music seems to be intertwined with its material life, so that
the text of its songs may be as various as that life itself. If we
attempt to put our tunes to the same variety of use they tend to lose
their significance, and become ludicrous; for our melodies transcend the
barriers of everyday life, and only thus can they carry us so deep into
Pity, so high into Aloofness; their function being to reveal a picture
of the inmost inexpressible depths of our being, mysterious and
impenetrable, where the devotee may find his hermitage ready, or even
the epicurean his bower, but where there is no room for the busy man of
the world.
I cannot claim that I gained admittance to the soul of European music.
But what little of it I came to understand from the outside attracted me
greatly in one way. It seemed to me so romantic. It is somewhat
difficult to analyse what I mean by that word. What I would refer to is
the aspect of variety, of abundance, of the waves on the sea of life, of
the ever-changing light and shade on their ceaseless undulations. There
is the opposite aspect--of pure extension, of the unwinking blue of the
sky, of the silent hint of immeasureability in the distant circle of the
horizon. However that may be, let me repeat, at the risk of not being
perfectly clear, that whenever I have been moved by European music I
have said to myself: it is romantic, it is translating into melody the
evanescence of life.
Not that we wholly lack the same attempt in some forms of our music; but
it is less pronounced, less successful. Our melodies give voice to the
star-spangled night, to the first reddening of dawn. They speak of the
sky-pervading sorrow which lowers in the darkness of clouds; the
speechless deep intoxication of the forest-roaming spring.
(29) _Valmiki Pratibha_
We had a profusely decorated volume of Moore's Irish Melodies: and often
have I listened to the enraptured recitation of these by Akshay Babu.
The poems combined with the pictorial designs to conjure up for me a
dream picture of the Ireland of old. I had not then actually heard the
original tunes, but had sung these Irish Melodies to myself to the
accompaniment of the harps in the pictures. I longed to hear the real
tunes, to learn them, and sing them to Akshay Babu. Some longings
unfortunately do get fulfilled in this life, and die in the process.
When I went to England I did hear some of the Irish Melodies sung, and
learnt them too, but that put an end to my keenness to learn more. They
were simple, mournful and sweet, but they somehow did not fit in with
the silent melody of the harp which filled the halls of the Old Ireland
of my dreams.
When I came back home I sung the Irish melodies I had learnt to my
people. "What is the matter with Rabi's voice?" they exclaimed. "How
funny and foreign it sounds!" They even felt my speaking voice had
changed its tone.
From this mixed cultivation of foreign and native melody was born the
_Valmiki Pratibha_.[45] The tunes in this musical drama are mostly
Indian, but they have been dragged out of their classic dignity; that
which soared in the sky was taught to run on the earth. Those who have
seen and heard it performed will, I trust, bear witness that the
harnessing of Indian melodic modes to the service of the drama has
proved neither derogatory nor futile. This conjunction is the only
special feature of _Valmiki Pratibha_. The pleasing task of loosening
the chains of melodic forms and making them adaptable to a variety of
treatment completely engrossed me.
Several of the songs of _Valmiki Pratibha_ were set to tunes originally
severely classic in mode; some of the tunes were composed by my brother
Jyotirindra; a few were adapted from European sources. The _Telena_[46]
style of Indian modes specially lends itself to dramatic purposes and
has been frequently utilized in this work. Two English tunes served for
the drinking songs of the robber band, and an Irish melody for the
lament of the wood nymphs.
_Valmiki Pratibha_ is not a composition which will bear being read. Its
significance is lost if it is not heard sung and seen acted. It is not
what Europeans call an Opera, but a little drama set to music. That is
to say, it is not primarily a musical composition. Very few of the songs
are important or attractive by themselves; they all serve merely as the
musical text of the play.
Before I went to England we occasionally used to have gatherings of
literary men in our house, at which music, recitations and light
refreshments were served up. After my return one more such gathering
was held, which happened to be the last. It was for an entertainment in
this connection that the _Valmiki Pratibha_ was composed. I played
_Valmiki_ and my niece, Pratibha, took the part of _Saraswati_--which
bit of history remains recorded in the name.
I had read in some work of Herbert Spencer's that speech takes on
tuneful inflexions whenever emotion comes into play. It is a fact that
the tone or tune is as important to us as the spoken word for the
expression of anger, sorrow, joy and wonder. Spencer's idea that,
through a development of these emotional modulations of voice, man found
music, appealed to me. Why should it not do, I thought to myself, to act
a drama in a kind of recitative based on this idea. The _Kathakas_[47]
of our country attempt this to some extent, for they frequently break
into a chant which, however, stops short of full melodic form. As blank
verse is more elastic than rhymed, so such chanting, though not devoid
of rhythm, can more freely adapt itself to the emotional interpretation
of the text, because it does not attempt to conform to the more rigorous
canons of tune and time required by a regular melodic composition. The
expression of feeling being the object, these deficiencies in regard to
form do not jar on the hearer.
Encouraged by the success of this new line taken in the _Valmiki
Pratibha_, I composed another musical play of the same class. It was
called the _Kal Mrigaya_, The Fateful Hunt. The plot was based on the
story of the accidental killing of the blind hermit's only son by King
Dasaratha. It was played on a stage erected on our roof-terrace, and the
audience seemed profoundly moved by its pathos. Afterwards, much of it
was, with slight changes, incorporated in the _Valmiki Pratibha_, and
this play ceased to be separately published in my works.
Long afterwards, I composed a third musical play, _Mayar Khela_, the
Play of _Maya_, an operetta of a different type. In this the songs were
important, not the drama. In the others a series of dramatic situations
were strung on a thread of melody; this was a garland of songs with just
a thread of dramatic plot running through. The play of feeling, and not
action, was its special feature. In point of fact I was, while composing
it, saturated with the mood of song.
The enthusiasm which went to the making of _Valmiki Pratibha_ and _Kal
Mrigaya_ I have never felt for any other work of mine. In these two the
creative musical impulse of the time found expression.
My brother, Jyotirindra, was engaged the live-long day at his piano,
refashioning the classic melodic forms at his pleasure. And, at every
turn of his instrument, the old modes took on unthought-of shapes and
expressed new shades of feeling. The melodic forms which had become
habituated to their pristine stately gait, when thus compelled to march
to more lively unconventional measures, displayed an unexpected agility
and power; and moved us correspondingly. We could plainly hear the tunes
speak to us while Akshay Babu and I sat on either side fitting words to
them as they grew out of my brother's nimble fingers. I do not claim
that our _libretto_ was good poetry but it served as a vehicle for the
tunes.
In the riotous joy of this revolutionary activity were these two musical
plays composed, and so they danced merrily to every measure, whether or
not technically correct, indifferent as to the tunes being homelike or
foreign.
On many an occasion has the Bengali reading public been grievously
exercised over some opinion or literary form of mine, but it is curious
to find that the daring with which I had played havoc with accepted
musical notions did not rouse any resentment; on the contrary those who
came to hear departed pleased. A few of Akshay Babu's compositions find
place in the _Valmiki Pratibha_ and also adaptations from Vihari
Chakravarti's _Sarada Mangal_ series of songs.
I used to take the leading part in the performance of these musical
dramas. From my early years I had a taste for acting, and firmly
believed that I had a special aptitude for it. I think I proved that my
belief was not ill-founded. I had only once before done the part of
Aleek Babu in a farce written by my brother Jyotirindra. So these were
really my first attempts at acting. I was then very young and nothing
seemed to fatigue or trouble my voice.
In our house, at the time, a cascade of musical emotion was gushing
forth day after day, hour after hour, its scattered spray reflecting
into our being a whole gamut of rainbow colours. Then, with the
freshness of youth, our new-born energy, impelled by its virgin
curiosity, struck out new paths in every direction. We felt we would try
and test everything, and no achievement seemed impossible. We wrote, we
sang, we acted, we poured ourselves out on every side. This was how I
stepped into my twentieth year.
Of these forces which so triumphantly raced our lives along, my brother
Jyotirindra was the charioteer. He was absolutely fearless. Once, when I
was a mere lad, and had never ridden a horse before, he made me mount
one and gallop by his side, with no qualms about his unskilled
companion. When at the same age, while we were at Shelidah, (the
head-quarters of our estate,) news was brought of a tiger, he took me
with him on a hunting expedition. I had no gun,--it would have been more
dangerous to me than to the tiger if I had. We left our shoes at the
outskirts of the jungle and crept in with bare feet. At last we
scrambled up into a bamboo thicket, partly stripped of its thorn-like
twigs, where I somehow managed to crouch behind my brother till the deed
was done; with no means of even administering a shoe-beating to the
unmannerly brute had he dared lay his offensive paws on me!
Thus did my brother give me full freedom both internal and external in
the face of all dangers. No usage or custom was a bondage for him, and
so was he able to rid me of my shrinking diffidence.
(30) _Evening Songs_
In the state of being confined within myself, of which I have been
telling, I wrote a number of poems which have been grouped together,
under the title of the _Heart-Wilderness_, in Mohita Babu's edition of
my works. In one of the poems subsequently published in a volume called
_Morning Songs_, the following lines occur:
There is a vast wilderness whose name is _Heart_;
Whose interlacing forest branches dandle and rock darkness
like an infant.
I lost my way in its depths.
from which came the idea of the name for this group of poems.
Much of what I wrote, when thus my life had no commerce with the
outside, when I was engrossed in the contemplation of my own heart, when
my imaginings wandered in many a disguise amidst causeless emotions and
aimless longings, has been left out of that edition; only a few of the
poems originally published in the volume entitled _Evening Songs_
finding a place there, in the _Heart-Wilderness_ group.
My brother Jyotirindra and his wife had left home travelling on a long
journey, and their rooms on the third storey, facing the terraced-roof,
were empty. I took possession of these and the terrace, and spent my
days in solitude. While thus left in communion with my self alone, I
know not how I slipped out of the poetical groove into which I had
fallen. Perhaps being cut off from those whom I sought to please, and
whose taste in poetry moulded the form I tried to put my thoughts into,
I naturally gained freedom from the style they had imposed on me.
I began to use a slate for my writing. That also helped in my
emancipation. The manuscript books in which I had indulged before seemed
to demand a certain height of poetic flight, to work up to which I had
to find my way by a comparison with others. But the slate was clearly
fitted for my mood of the moment. "Fear not," it seemed to say. "Write
just what you please, one rub will wipe all away!"
As I wrote a poem or two, thus unfettered, I felt a great joy well up
within me. "At last," said my heart, "what I write is my own!" Let no
one mistake this for an accession of pride. Rather did I feel a pride in
my former productions, as being all the tribute I had to pay them. But I
refuse to call the realisation of self, self-sufficiency. The joy of
parents in their first-born is not due to any pride in its appearance,
but because it is their very own. If it happens to be an extraordinary
child they may also glory in that--but that is different.
In the first flood-tide of that joy I paid no heed to the bounds of
metrical form, and as the stream does not flow straight on but winds
about as it lists, so did my verse. Before, I would have held this to be
a crime, but now I felt no compunction. Freedom first breaks the law and
then makes laws which brings it under true Self-rule.
The only listener I had for these erratic poems of mine was Akshay Babu.
When he heard them for the first time he was as surprised as he was
pleased, and with his approbation my road to freedom was widened.
The poems of Vihari Chakravarti were in a 3-beat metre. This triple time
produces a rounded-off globular effect, unlike the square-cut multiple
of 2. It rolls on with ease, it glides as it dances to the tinkling of
its anklets. I was once very fond of this metre. It felt more like
riding a bicycle than walking. And to this stride I had got accustomed.
In the _Evening Songs_, without thinking of it, I somehow broke off this
habit. Nor did I come under any other particular bondage. I felt
entirely free and unconcerned. I had no thought or fear of being taken
to task.
The strength I gained by working, freed from the trammels of tradition,
led me to discover that I had been searching in impossible places for
that which I had within myself. Nothing but want of self-confidence had
stood in the way of my coming into my own. I felt like rising from a
dream of bondage to find myself unshackled. I cut extraordinary capers
just to make sure I was free to move.
To me this is the most memorable period of my poetic career. As poems my
_Evening Songs_ may not have been worth much, in fact as such they are
crude enough. Neither their metre, nor language, nor thought had taken
definite shape. Their only merit is that for the first time I had come
to write what I really meant, just according to my pleasure. What if
those compositions have no value, that pleasure certainly had.
(31) _An Essay on Music_
I had been proposing to study for the bar when my father had recalled me
home from England. Some friends concerned at this cutting short of my
career pressed him to send me off once again. This led to my starting on
a second voyage towards England, this time with a relative as my
companion. My fate, however, had so strongly vetoed my being called to
the bar that I was not even to reach England this time. For a certain
reason we had to disembark at Madras and return home to Calcutta. The
reason was by no means as grave as its outcome, but as the laugh was not
against _me_, I refrain from setting it down here. From both my
attempted pilgrimages to _Lakshmi's_[48] shrine I had thus to come back
repulsed. I hope, however, that the Law-god, at least, will look on me
with a favourable eye for that I have not added to the encumbrances on
the Bar-library premises.
My father was then in the Mussoorie hills. I went to him in fear and
trembling. But he showed no sign of irritation, he rather seemed
pleased. He must have seen in this return of mine the blessing of Divine
Providence.
The evening before I started on this voyage I read a paper at the
Medical College Hall on the invitation of the Bethune Society. This was
my first public reading. The Reverend K. M. Banerji was the president.
The subject was Music. Leaving aside instrumental music, I tried to make
out that to bring out better what the words sought to express was the
chief end and aim of vocal music. The text of my paper was but meagre. I
sang and acted songs throughout illustrating my theme. The only reason
for the flattering eulogy which the President bestowed on me at the end
must have been the moving effect of my young voice together with the
earnestness and variety of its efforts. But I must make the confession
to-day that the opinion I voiced with such enthusiasm that evening was
wrong.
The art of vocal music has its own special functions and features. And
when it happens to be set to words the latter must not presume too much
on their opportunity and seek to supersede the melody of which they are
but the vehicle. The song being great in its own wealth, why should it
wait upon the words? Rather does it begin where mere words fail. Its
power lies in the region of the inexpressible; it tells us what the
words cannot.
So the less a song is burdened with words the better. In the classic
style of Hindustan[49] the words are of no account and leave the melody
to make its appeal in its own way. Vocal music reaches its perfection
when the melodic form is allowed to develop freely, and carry our
consciousness with it to its own wonderful plane. In Bengal, however,
the words have always asserted themselves so, that our provincial song
has failed to develop her full musical capabilities, and has remained
content as the handmaiden of her sister art of poetry. From the old
_Vaishnava_ songs down to those of Nidhu Babu she has displayed her
charms from the background. But as in our country the wife rules her
husband through acknowledging her dependence, so our music, though
professedly in attendance only, ends by dominating the song.
I have often felt this while composing my songs. As I hummed to myself
and wrote the lines:
Do not keep your secret to yourself, my love,
But whisper it gently to me, only to me.
I found that the words had no means of reaching by themselves the region
into which they were borne away by the tune. The melody told me that
the secret, which I was so importunate to hear, had mingled with the
green mystery of the forest glades, was steeped in the silent whiteness
of moonlight nights, peeped out of the veil of the illimitable blue
behind the horizon--and is the one intimate secret of Earth, Sky and
Waters.
In my early boyhood I heard a snatch of a song:
Who dressed you, love, as a foreigner?
This one line painted such wonderful pictures in my mind that it haunts
me still. One day I sat down to set to words a composition of my own
while full of this bit of song. Humming my tune I wrote to its
accompaniment:
I know you, O Woman from the strange land!
Your dwelling is across the Sea.
Had the tune not been there I know not what shape the rest of the poem
might have taken; but the magic of the melody revealed to me the
stranger in all her loveliness. It is she, said my soul, who comes and
goes, a messenger to this world from the other shore of the ocean of
mystery. It is she, of whom we now and again catch glimpses in the dewy
Autumn mornings, in the scented nights of Spring, in the inmost recesses
of our hearts--and sometimes we strain skywards to hear her song. To
the door of this world-charming stranger the melody, as I say, wafted
me, and so to her were the rest of the words addressed.
Long after this, in a street in Bolpur, a mendicant _Baul_ was singing
as he walked along:
How does the unknown bird flit in and out of the cage!
Ah, could I but catch it, I'd ring its feet with my love!
I found this _Baul_ to be saying the very same thing. The unknown bird
sometimes surrenders itself within the bars of the cage to whisper
tidings of the bondless unknown beyond. The heart would fain hold it
near to itself for ever, but cannot. What but the melody of song can
tell us of the goings and comings of the unknown bird?
That is why I am always reluctant to publish books of the words of
songs, for therein the soul must needs be lacking.
(32) _The River-side_
When I returned home from the outset of my second voyage to England, my
brother Jyotirindra and sister-in-law were living in a river-side villa
at Chandernagore, and there I went to stay with them.
The Ganges again! Again those ineffable days and nights, languid with
joy, sad with longing, attuned to the plaintive babbling of the river
along the cool shade of its wooded banks. This Bengal sky-full of light,
this south breeze, this flow of the river, this right royal laziness,
this broad leisure stretching from horizon to horizon and from green
earth to blue sky, all these were to me as food and drink to the hungry
and thirsty. Here it felt indeed like home, and in these I recognised
the ministrations of a Mother.
That was not so very long ago, and yet time has wrought many changes.
Our little river-side nests, clustering under their surrounding
greenery, have been replaced by mills which now, dragon-like, everywhere
rear their hissing heads, belching forth black smoke. In the midday
glare of modern life even our hours of mental siesta have been narrowed
down to the lowest limit, and hydra-headed unrest has invaded every
department of life. Maybe, this is for the better, but I, for one,
cannot account it wholly to the good.
[Illustration: The Ganges Again]
These lovely days of mine at the riverside passed by like so many
dedicated lotus blossoms floating down the sacred stream. Some rainy
afternoons I spent in a veritable frenzy, singing away old _Vaishnava_
songs to my own tunes, accompanying myself on a harmonium. On other
afternoons, we would drift along in a boat, my brother Jyotirindra
accompanying my singing with his violin. And as, beginning with the
_Puravi_,[50] we went on varying the mode of our music with the
declining day, we saw, on reaching the _Behaga_,[50] the western sky
close the doors of its factory of golden toys, and the moon on the east
rise over the fringe of trees.
Then we would row back to the landing steps of the villa and seat
ourselves on a quilt spread on the terrace facing the river. By then a
silvery peace rested on both land and water, hardly any boats were
about, the fringe of trees on the bank was reduced to a deep shadow, and
the moonlight glimmered over the smooth flowing stream.
The villa we were living in was known as 'Moran's Garden'. A flight of
stone-flagged steps led up from the water to a long, broad verandah
which formed part of the house. The rooms were not regularly arranged,
nor all on the same level, and some had to be reached by short flights
of stairs. The big sitting room overlooking the landing steps had
stained glass windows with coloured pictures.
One of the pictures was of a swing hanging from a branch half-hidden in
dense foliage, and in the checkered light and shade of this bower, two
persons were swinging; and there was another of a broad flight of steps
leading into some castle-like palace, up and down which men and women
in festive garb were going and coming. When the light fell on the
windows, these pictures shone wonderfully, seeming to fill the
river-side atmosphere with holiday music. Some far-away long-forgotten
revelry seemed to be expressing itself in silent words of light; the
love thrills of the swinging couple making alive with their eternal
story the woodlands of the river bank.
The topmost room of the house was in a round tower with windows opening
to every side. This I used as my room for writing poetry. Nothing could
be seen from thence save the tops of the surrounding trees, and the open
sky. I was then busy with the _Evening Songs_ and of this room I wrote:
There, where in the breast of limitless space clouds are laid to sleep,
I have built my house for thee, O Poesy!
(33) _More About the Evening Songs_
At this time my reputation amongst literary critics was that of being a
poet of broken cadence and lisping utterance. Everything about my work
was dubbed misty, shadowy. However little I might have relished this at
the time, the charge was not wholly baseless. My poetry did in fact
lack the backbone of worldly reality. How, amidst the ringed-in
seclusion of my early years, was I to get the necessary material?
But one thing I refuse to admit. Behind this charge of vagueness was the
sting of the insinuation of its being a deliberate affectation--for the
sake of effect. The fortunate possessor of good eye-sight is apt to
sneer at the youth with glasses, as if he wears them for ornament. While
a reflection on the poor fellow's infirmity may be permissible, it is
too bad to charge him with pretending not to see.
The nebula is not an outside creation--it merely represents a phase; and
to leave out all poetry which has not attained definiteness would not
bring us to the truth of literature. If any phase of man's nature has
found true expression, it is worth preserving--it may be cast aside only
if not expressed truly. There is a period in man's life when his
feelings are the pathos of the inexpressible, the anguish of vagueness.
The poetry which attempts its expression cannot be called baseless--at
worst it may be worthless; but it is not necessarily even that. The sin
is not in the thing expressed, but in the failure to express it.
There is a duality in man. Of the inner person, behind the outward
current of thoughts, feelings and events, but little is known or recked;
but for all that, he cannot be got rid of as a factor in life's
progress. When the outward life fails to harmonise with the inner, the
dweller within is hurt, and his pain manifests itself in the outer
consciousness in a manner to which it is difficult to give a name, or
even to describe, and of which the cry is more akin to an inarticulate
wail than words with more precise meaning.
The sadness and pain which sought expression in the _Evening Songs_ had
their roots in the depths of my being. As one's sleep-smothered
consciousness wrestles with a nightmare in its efforts to awake, so the
submerged inner self struggles to free itself from its complexities and
come out into the open. These _Songs_ are the history of that struggle.
As in all creation, so in poetry, there is the opposition of forces. If
the divergence is too wide, or the unison too close, there is, it seems
to me, no room for poetry. Where the pain of discord strives to attain
and express its resolution into harmony, there does poetry break forth
into music, as breath through a flute.
When the _Evening Songs_ first saw the light they were not hailed with
any flourish of trumpets, but none the less they did not lack admirers.
I have elsewhere told the story of how at the wedding of Mr. Ramesh
Chandra Dutt's eldest daughter, Bankim Babu was at the door, and the
host was welcoming him with the customary garland of flowers. As I came
up Bankim Babu eagerly took the garland and placing it round my neck
said: "The wreath to him, Ramesh, have you not read his _Evening
Songs_?" And when Mr. Dutt avowed he had not yet done so, the manner in
which Bankim Babu expressed his opinion of some of them amply rewarded
me.
The _Evening Songs_ gained for me a friend whose approval, like the rays
of the sun, stimulated and guided the shoots of my newly sprung efforts.
This was Babu Priyanath Sen. Just before this the _Broken Heart_ had led
him to give up all hopes of me. I won him back with these _Evening
Songs_. Those who are acquainted with him know him as an expert
navigator of all the seven seas[51] of literature, whose highways and
byways, in almost all languages, Indian and foreign, he is constantly
traversing. To converse with him is to gain glimpses of even the most
out of the way scenery in the world of ideas. This proved of the
greatest value to me.
He was able to give his literary opinions with the fullest confidence,
for he had not to rely on his unaided taste to guide his likes and
dislikes. This authoritative criticism of his also assisted me more
than I can tell. I used to read to him everything I wrote, and but for
the timely showers of his discriminate appreciation it is hard to say
whether these early ploughings of mine would have yielded as they have
done.
(34) _Morning Songs_
At the river-side I also did a bit of prose writing, not on any definite
subject or plan, but in the spirit that boys catch butterflies. When
spring comes within, many-coloured short-lived fancies are born and flit
about in the mind, ordinarily unnoticed. In these days of my leisure, it
was perhaps the mere whim to collect them which had come upon me. Or it
may have been only another phase of my emancipated self which had thrown
out its chest and decided to write just as it pleased; what I wrote not
being the object, it being sufficient unto itself that it was I who
wrote. These prose pieces were published later under the name of
_Vividha Prabandha_, Various Topics, but they expired with the first
edition and did not get a fresh lease of life in a second.
At this time, I think, I also began my first novel, _Bauthakuranir Hat_.
After we had stayed for a time by the river, my brother Jyotirindra took
a house in Calcutta, on Sudder Street near the Museum. I remained with
him. While I went on here with the novel and the _Evening Songs_, a
momentous revolution of some kind came about within me.
One day, late in the afternoon, I was pacing the terrace of our
Jorasanko house. The glow of the sunset combined with the wan twilight
in a way which seemed to give the approaching evening a specially
wonderful attractiveness for me. Even the walls of the adjoining house
seemed to grow beautiful. Is this uplifting of the cover of triviality
from the everyday world, I wondered, due to some magic in the evening
light? Never!
I could see at once that it was the effect of the evening which had come
within me; its shades had obliterated my _self_. While the self was
rampant during the glare of day, everything I perceived was mingled with
and hidden by it. Now, that the self was put into the background, I
could see the world in its own true aspect. And that aspect has nothing
of triviality in it, it is full of beauty and joy.
Since this experience I tried the effect of deliberately suppressing my
_self_ and viewing the world as a mere spectator, and was invariably
rewarded with a sense of special pleasure. I remember I tried also to
explain to a relative how to see the world in its true light, and the
incidental lightening of one's own sense of burden which follows such
vision; but, as I believe, with no success.
Then I gained a further insight which has lasted all my life.
The end of Sudder Street, and the trees on the Free School grounds
opposite, were visible from our Sudder Street house. One morning I
happened to be standing on the verandah looking that way. The sun was
just rising through the leafy tops of those trees. As I continued to
gaze, all of a sudden a covering seemed to fall away from my eyes, and I
found the world bathed in a wonderful radiance, with waves of beauty and
joy swelling on every side. This radiance pierced in a moment through
the folds of sadness and despondency which had accumulated over my
heart, and flooded it with this universal light.
That very day the poem, _The Awakening of the Waterfall_, gushed forth
and coursed on like a veritable cascade. The poem came to an end, but
the curtain did not fall upon the joy aspect of the Universe. And it
came to be so that no person or thing in the world seemed to me trivial
or unpleasing. A thing that happened the next day or the day following
seemed specially astonishing.
There was a curious sort of person who came to me now and then, with a
habit of asking all manner of silly questions. One day he had asked:
"Have you, sir, seen God with your own eyes?" And on my having to admit
that I had not, he averred that he had. "What was it you saw?" I asked.
"He seethed and throbbed before my eyes!" was the reply.
It can well be imagined that one would not ordinarily relish being drawn
into abstruse discussions with such a person. Moreover, I was at the
time entirely absorbed in my own writing. Nevertheless as he was a
harmless sort of fellow I did not like the idea of hurting his
susceptibilities and so tolerated him as best I could.
This time, when he came one afternoon, I actually felt glad to see him,
and welcomed him cordially. The mantle of his oddity and foolishness
seemed to have slipped off, and the person I so joyfully hailed was the
real man whom I felt to be in nowise inferior to myself, and moreover
closely related. Finding no trace of annoyance within me at sight of
him, nor any sense of my time being wasted with him, I was filled with
an immense gladness, and felt rid of some enveloping tissue of untruth
which had been causing me so much needless and uncalled for discomfort
and pain.
As I would stand on the balcony, the gait, the figure, the features of
each one of the passers-by, whoever they might be, seemed to me all so
extraordinarily wonderful, as they flowed past,--waves on the sea of the
universe. From infancy I had seen only with my eyes, I now began to see
with the whole of my consciousness. I could not look upon the sight of
two smiling youths, nonchalantly going their way, the arm of one on the
other's shoulder, as a matter of small moment; for, through it I could
see the fathomless depths of the eternal spring of Joy from which
numberless sprays of laughter leap up throughout the world.
I had never before marked the play of limbs and lineaments which always
accompanies even the least of man's actions; now I was spell-bound by
their variety, which I came across on all sides, at every moment. Yet I
saw them not as being apart by themselves, but as parts of that
amazingly beautiful greater dance which goes on at this very moment
throughout the world of men, in each of their homes, in their
multifarious wants and activities.
Friend laughs with friend, the mother fondles her child, one cow sidles
up to another and licks its body, and the immeasurability behind these
comes direct to my mind with a shock which almost savours of pain.
When of this period I wrote:
I know not how of a sudden my heart flung open its doors,
And let the crowd of worlds rush in, greeting each other,--
it was no poetic exaggeration. Rather I had not the power to express all
I felt.
For some time together I remained in this self-forgetful state of bliss.
Then my brother thought of going to the Darjeeling hills. So much the
better, thought I. On the vast Himalayan tops I shall be able to see
more deeply into what has been revealed to me in Sudder Street; at any
rate I shall see how the Himalayas display themselves to my new gift of
vision.
But the victory was with that little house in Sudder Street. When, after
ascending the mountains, I looked around, I was at once aware I had lost
my new vision. My sin must have been in imagining that I could get still
more of truth from the outside. However sky-piercing the king of
mountains may be, he can have nothing in his gift for me; while He who
is the Giver can vouchsafe a vision of the eternal universe in the
dingiest of lanes, and in a moment of time.
I wandered about amongst the firs, I sat near the falls and bathed in
their waters, I gazed at the grandeur of Kinchinjunga through a
cloudless sky, but in what had seemed to me these likeliest of places,
I found _it_ not. I had come to know it, but could see it no longer.
While I was admiring the gem the lid had suddenly closed, leaving me
staring at the enclosing casket. But, for all the attractiveness of its
workmanship, there was no longer any danger of my mistaking it for
merely an empty box.
My _Morning Songs_ came to an end, their last echo dying out with _The
Echo_ which I wrote at Darjeeling. This apparently proved such an
abstruse affair that two friends laid a wager as to its real meaning. My
only consolation was that, as I was equally unable to explain the enigma
to them when they came to me for a solution, neither of them had to lose
any money over it. Alas! The days when I wrote excessively plain poems
about _The Lotus_ and _A Lake_ had gone forever.
But does one write poetry to explain any matter? What is felt within the
heart tries to find outside shape as a poem. So when after listening to
a poem anyone says he has not understood, I feel nonplussed. If someone
smells a flower and says he does not understand, the reply to him is:
there is nothing to understand, it is only a scent. If he persists,
saying: _that_ I know, but what does it all _mean_? Then one has either
to change the subject, or make it more abstruse by saying that the
scent is the shape which the universal joy takes in the flower.
That words have meanings is just the difficulty. That is why the poet
has to turn and twist them in metre and verse, so that the meaning may
be held somewhat in check, and the feeling allowed a chance to express
itself.
This utterance of feeling is not the statement of a fundamental truth,
or a scientific fact, or a useful moral precept. Like a tear or a smile
it is but a picture of what is taking place within. If Science or
Philosophy may gain anything from it they are welcome, but that is not
the reason of its being. If while crossing a ferry you can catch a fish
you are a lucky man, but that does not make the ferry boat a fishing
boat, nor should you abuse the ferryman if he does not make fishing his
business.
_The Echo_ was written so long ago that it has escaped attention and I
am now no longer called upon to render an account of its meaning.
Nevertheless, whatever its other merits or defects may be, I can assure
my readers that it was not my intention to propound a riddle, or
insidiously convey any erudite teaching. The fact of the matter was that
a longing had been born within my heart, and, unable to find any other
name, I had called the thing I desired an Echo.
When from the original fount in the depths of the Universe streams of
melody are sent forth abroad, their echo is reflected into our heart
from the faces of our beloved and the other beauteous things around us.
It must be, as I suggested, this Echo which we love, and not the things
themselves from which it happens to be reflected; for that which one day
we scarce deign to glance at, may be, on another, the very thing which
claims our whole devotion.
I had so long viewed the world with external vision only, and so had
been unable to see its universal aspect of joy. When of a sudden, from
some innermost depth of my being, a ray of light found its way out, it
spread over and illuminated for me the whole universe, which then no
longer appeared like heaps of things and happenings, but was disclosed
to my sight as one whole. This experience seemed to tell me of the
stream of melody issuing from the very heart of the universe and
spreading over space and time, re-echoing thence as waves of joy which
flow right back to the source.
When the artist sends his song forth from the depths of a full heart
that is joy indeed. And the joy is redoubled when this same song is
wafted back to him as hearer. If, when the creation of the Arch-Poet is
thus returning back to him in a flood of joy, we allow it to flow over
our consciousness, we at once, immediately, become aware, in an
inexpressible manner, of the end to which this flood is streaming. And
as we become aware our love goes forth; and our _selves_ are moved from
their moorings and would fain float down the stream of joy to its
infinite goal. This is the meaning of the longing which stirs within us
at the sight of Beauty.
The stream which comes from the Infinite and flows toward the
finite--that is the True, the Good; it is subject to laws, definite in
form. Its echo which returns towards the Infinite is Beauty and Joy;
which are difficult to touch or grasp, and so make us beside ourselves.
This is what I tried to say by way of a parable or a song in _The Echo_.
That the result was not clear is not to be wondered at, for neither was
the attempt then clear unto itself.
Let me set down here part of what I wrote in a letter, at a more
advanced age, about the _Morning Songs_.
"There is none in the World, all are in my heart"--is a
state of mind belonging to a particular age. When the heart
is first awakened it puts forth its arms and would grasp the
whole world, like the teething infant which thinks
everything meant for its mouth. Gradually it comes to
understand what it really wants and what it does not. Then
do its nebulous emanations shrink upon themselves, get
heated, and heat in their turn.
To begin by wanting the whole world is to get nothing. When
desire is concentrated, with the whole strength of one's
being upon any one object whatsoever it might be, then does
the gateway to the Infinite become visible. The morning
songs were the first throwing forth of my inner self
outwards, and consequently they lack any signs of such
concentration.
This all-pervading joy of a first outflow, however, has the effect of
leading us to an acquaintance with the particular. The lake in its
fulness seeks an outlet as a river. In this sense the permanent later
love is narrower than first love. It is more definite in the direction
of its activities, desires to realise the whole in each of its parts,
and is thus impelled on towards the infinite. What it finally reaches is
no longer the former indefinite extension of the heart's own inner joy,
but a merging in the infinite reality which was outside itself, and
thereby the attainment of the complete truth of its own longings.
In Mohita Babu's edition these _Morning Songs_ have been placed in the
group of poems entitled _Nishkraman_, The Emergence. For in these was to
be found the first news of my coming out of the _Heart Wilderness_ into
the open world. Thereafter did this pilgrim heart make its acquaintance
with that world, bit by bit, part by part, in many a mood and manner.
And at the end, after gliding past all the numerous landing steps of
ever-changing impermanence, it will reach the infinite,--not the
vagueness of indeterminate possibility, but the consummation of perfect
fulness of Truth.
From my earliest years I enjoyed a simple and intimate communion with
Nature. Each one of the cocoanut trees in our garden had for me a
distinct personality. When, on coming home from the Normal School, I saw
behind the skyline of our roof-terrace blue-grey water-laden clouds
thickly banked up, the immense depth of gladness which filled me, all in
a moment, I can recall clearly even now. On opening my eyes every
morning, the blithely awakening world used to call me to join it like a
playmate; the perfervid noonday sky, during the long silent watches of
the siesta hours, would spirit me away from the work-a-day world into
the recesses of its hermit cell; and the darkness of night would open
the door to its phantom paths, and take me over all the seven seas and
thirteen rivers, past all possibilities and impossibilities, right into
its wonder-land.
Then one day, when, with the dawn of youth, my hungry heart began to cry
out for its sustenance, a barrier was set up between this play of inside
and outside. And my whole being eddied round and round my troubled
heart, creating a vortex within itself, in the whirls of which its
consciousness was confined.
This loss of the harmony between inside and outside, due to the
over-riding claims of the heart in its hunger, and consequent
restriction of the privilege of communion which had been mine, was
mourned by me in the _Evening Songs_. In the _Morning Songs_ I
celebrated the sudden opening of a gate in the barrier, by what shock I
know not, through which I regained the lost one, not only as I knew it
before, but more deeply, more fully, by force of the intervening
separation.
Thus did the First Book of my life come to an end with these chapters of
union, separation and reunion. Or, rather, it is not true to say it has
come to an end. The same subject has still to be continued through more
elaborate solutions of worse complexities, to a greater conclusion. Each
one comes here to finish but one book of life, which, during the
progress of its various parts, grows spiral-wise on an ever-increasing
radius. So, while each segment may appear different from the others at a
cursory glance, they all really lead back to the self-same starting
centre.
The prose writings of the _Evening Songs_ period were published, as I
have said, under the name of _Vividha Prabandha_. Those others which
correspond to the time of my writing the _Morning Songs_ came out under
the title of _Alochana_, Discussions. The difference between the
characteristics of these two would be a good index of the nature of the
change that had in the meantime taken place within me.