(35) _Rajendrahal Mitra_
It was about this time that my brother Jyotirindra had the idea of
founding a Literary Academy by bringing together all the men of letters
of repute. To compile authoritative technical terms for the Bengali
language and in other ways to assist in its growth was to be its
object--therein differing but little from the lines on which the modern
_Sahitya Parishat_, Academy of Literature, has taken shape.
Dr. Rajendrahal Mitra took up the idea of this Academy with enthusiasm,
and he was eventually its president for the short time it lasted. When I
went to invite Pandit Vidyasagar to join it, he gave a hearing to my
explanation of its objects and the names of the proposed members, then
said: "My advice to you is to leave us out--you will never accomplish
anything with big wigs; they can never be got to agree with one
another." With which he refused to come in. Bankim Babu became a member,
but I cannot say that he took much interest in the work.
To be plain, so long as this academy lived Rajendrahal Mitra did
everything single-handed. He began with Geographical terms. The draft
list was made out by Dr. Rajendrahal himself and was printed and
circulated for the suggestions of the members. We had also an idea of
transliterating in Bengali the name of each foreign country as
pronounced by itself.
Pandit Vidyasagar's prophecy was fulfilled. It did not prove possible to
get the big wigs to do anything. And the academy withered away shortly
after sprouting. But Rajendrahal Mitra was an all-round expert and was
an academy in himself. My labours in this cause were more than repaid by
the privilege of his acquaintance. I have met many Bengali men of
letters in my time but none who left the impression of such brilliance.
I used to go and see him in the office of the Court of Wards in
Maniktala. I would go in the mornings and always find him busy with his
studies, and with the inconsiderateness of youth, I felt no hesitation
in disturbing him. But I have never seen him the least bit put out on
that account. As soon as he saw me he would put aside his work and begin
to talk to me. It is a matter of common knowledge that he was somewhat
hard of hearing, so he hardly ever gave me occasion to put him any
question. He would take up some broad subject and talk away upon it, and
it was the attraction of these discourses which drew me there. Converse
with no other person ever gave me such a wealth of suggestive ideas on
so many different subjects. I would listen enraptured.
I think he was a member of the text-book committee and every book he
received for approval, he read through and annotated in pencil. On some
occasions he would select one of these books for the text of discourses
on the construction of the Bengali language in particular or Philology
in general, which were of the greatest benefit to me. There were few
subjects which he had not studied and anything he had studied he could
clearly expound.
If we had not relied on the other members of the Academy we had tried to
found, but left everything to Dr. Rajendrahal, the present _Sahitya
Parishat_ would have doubtless found the matters it is now occupied with
left in a much more advanced state by that one man alone.
Dr. Rajendrahal Mitra was not only a profound scholar, but he had
likewise a striking personality which shone through his features. Full
of fire as he was in his public life, he could also unbend graciously so
as to talk on the most difficult subjects to a stripling like myself
without any trace of a patronising tone. I even took advantage of his
condescension to the extent of getting a contribution, _Yama's Dog_,
from him for the Bharabi. There were other great contemporaries of his
with whom I would not have ventured to take such liberties, nor would I
have met with the like response if I had.
And yet when he was on the war path his opponents on the Municipal
Corporation or the Senate of the University were mortally afraid of him.
In those days Kristo Das Pal was the tactful politician, and Rajendrahal
Mitra the valiant fighter.
For the purposes of the Asiatic Society's publications and researches,
he had to employ a number of Sanscrit Pandits to do the mechanical work
for him. I remember how this gave certain envious and mean-minded
detractors the opportunity of saying that everything was really done by
these Pandits while Rajendrahal fraudulently appropriated all the
credit. Even to-day we very often find the tools arrogating to
themselves the lion's share of the achievement, imagining the wielder to
be a mere ornamental figurehead. If the poor pen had a mind it would as
certainly have bemoaned the unfairness of its getting all the stain and
the writer all the glory!
It is curious that this extraordinary man should have got no recognition
from his countrymen even after his death. One of the reasons may be that
the national mourning for Vidyasagar, whose death followed shortly
after, left no room for a recognition of the other bereavement.
Another reason may be that his main contributions being outside the pale
of Bengali literature, he had been unable to reach the heart of the
people.
(36) _Karwar_
Our Sudder Street party next transferred itself to Karwar on the West
Sea coast. Karwar is the headquarters of the Kanara district in the
Southern portion of the Bombay Presidency. It is the tract of the Malaya
Hills of Sanskrit literature where grow the cardamum creeper and the
Sandal Tree. My second brother was then Judge there.
The little harbour, ringed round with hills, is so secluded that it has
nothing of the aspect of a port about it. Its crescent shaped beach
throws out its arms to the shoreless open sea like the very image of an
eager striving to embrace the infinite. The edge of the broad sandy
beach is fringed with a forest of casuarinas, broken at one end by the
_Kalanadi_ river which here flows into the sea after passing through a
gorge flanked by rows of hills on either side.
I remember how one moonlit evening we went up this river in a little
boat. We stopped at one of Shivaji's old hill forts, and stepping
ashore found our way into the clean-swept little yard of a peasant's
home. We sat on a spot where the moonbeams fell glancing off the top of
the outer enclosure, and there dined off the eatables we had brought
with us. On our way back we let the boat glide down the river. The night
brooded over the motionless hills and forests, and on the silent flowing
stream of this little _Kalanadi_, throwing over all its moonlight spell.
It took us a good long time to reach the mouth of the river, so, instead
of returning by sea, we got off the boat there and walked back home over
the sands of the beach. It was then far into the night, the sea was
without a ripple, even the ever-troubled murmur of the casuarinas was at
rest. The shadow of the fringe of trees along the vast expanse of sand
hung motionless along its border, and the ring of blue-grey hills around
the horizon slept calmly beneath the sky.
[Illustration: Karwar Beach]
Through the deep silence of this illimitable whiteness we few human
creatures walked along with our shadows, without a word. When we reached
home my sleep had lost itself in something still deeper. The poem which
I then wrote is inextricably mingled with that night on the distant
seashore. I do not know how it will appeal to the reader apart from the
memories with which it is entwined. This doubt led to its being left
out of Mohita Babu's edition of my works. I trust that a place given to
it among my reminiscences may not be deemed unfitting.
Let me sink down, losing myself in the depths of
midnight.
Let the Earth leave her hold of me, let her free me
from her obstacle of dust.
Keep your watch from afar, O stars, drunk though
you be with moonlight,
And let the horizon hold its wings still around me.
Let there be no song, no word, no sound, no touch;
nor sleep, nor awakening,--
But only the moonlight like a swoon of ecstasy
over the sky and my being.
The world seems to me like a ship with its countless
pilgrims,
Vanishing in the far-away blue of the sky,
Its sailors' song becoming fainter and fainter in
the air,
While I sink in the bosom of the endless night, fading
away from myself, dwindling into a point.
It is necessary to remark here that merely because something has been
written when feelings are brimming over, it is not therefore necessarily
good. Such is rather a time when the utterance is thick with emotion.
Just as it does not do to have the writer entirely removed from the
feeling to which he is giving expression, so also it does not conduce
to the truest poetry to have him too close to it. Memory is the brush
which can best lay on the true poetic colour. Nearness has too much of
the compelling about it and the imagination is not sufficiently free
unless it can get away from its influence. Not only in poetry, but in
all art, the mind of the artist must attain a certain degree of
aloofness--the _creator_ within man must be allowed the sole control. If
the subject matter gets the better of the creation, the result is a mere
replica of the event, not a reflection of it through the Artist's mind.
(37) _Nature's Revenge_
Here in Karwar I wrote the _Prakritir Pratishodha_, Nature's Revenge, a
dramatic poem. The hero was a Sanyasi (hermit) who had been striving to
gain a victory over Nature by cutting away the bonds of all desires and
affections and thus to arrive at a true and profound knowledge of self.
A little girl, however, brought him back from his communion with the
infinite to the world and into the bondage of human affection. On so
coming back the _Sanyasi_ realised that the great is to be found in the
small, the infinite within the bounds of form, and the eternal freedom
of the soul in love. It is only in the light of love that all limits
are merged in the limitless.
The sea beach of Karwar is certainly a fit place in which to realise
that the beauty of Nature is not a mirage of the imagination, but
reflects the joy of the Infinite and thus draws us to lose ourselves in
it. Where the universe is expressing itself in the magic of its laws it
may not be strange if we miss its infinitude; but where the heart gets
into immediate touch with immensity in the beauty of the meanest of
things, is any room left for argument?
Nature took the _Sanyasi_ to the presence of the Infinite, enthroned on
the finite, by the pathway of the heart. In the _Nature's Revenge_ there
were shown on the one side the wayfarers and the villagers, content with
their home-made triviality and unconscious of anything beyond; and on
the other the _Sanyasi_ busy casting away his all, and himself, into the
self-evolved infinite of his imagination. When love bridged the gulf
between the two, and the hermit and the householder met, the seeming
triviality of the finite and the seeming emptiness of the infinite alike
disappeared.
This was to put in a slightly different form the story of my own
experience, of the entrancing ray of light which found its way into the
depths of the cave into which I had retired away from all touch with
the outer world, and made me more fully one with Nature again. This
_Nature's Revenge_ may be looked upon as an introduction to the whole of
my future literary work; or, rather this has been the subject on which
all my writings have dwelt--the joy of attaining the Infinite within the
finite.
On our way back from Karwar I wrote some songs for the _Nature's
Revenge_ on board ship. The first one filled me with a great gladness as
I sang, and wrote it sitting on the deck:
Mother, leave your darling boy to us,
And let us take him to the field where we graze our cattle.[52]
The sun has risen, the buds have opened, the cowherd boys are going to
the pasture; and they would not have the sunlight, the flowers, and
their play in the grazing grounds empty. They want their _Shyam_
(Krishna) to be with them there, in the midst of all these. They want to
see the Infinite in all its carefully adorned loveliness; they have
turned out so early because they want to join in its gladsome play, in
the midst of these woods and fields and hills and dales--not to admire
from a distance, nor in the majesty of power. Their equipment is of the
slightest. A simple yellow garment and a garland of wild-flowers are all
the ornaments they require. For where joy reigns on every side, to hunt
for it arduously, or amidst pomp and circumstances, is to lose it.
Shortly after my return from Karwar, I was married. I was then 22 years
of age.
(38) _Pictures and Songs_
_Chhabi o Gan_, Picture and Songs, was the title of a book of poems most
of which were written at this time.
We were then living in a house with a garden in Lower Circular Road.
Adjoining it on the south was a large _Busti_.[53] I would often sit
near a window and watch the sights of this populous little settlement. I
loved to see them at their work and play and rest, and in their
multifarious goings and comings. To me it was all like a living story.
A faculty of many-sightedness possessed me at this time. Each little
separate picture I ringed round with the light of my imagination and the
joy of my heart; every one of them, moreover, being variously coloured
by a pathos of its own. The pleasure of thus separately marking off each
picture was much the same as that of painting it, both being the outcome
of the desire to see with the mind what the eye sees, and with the eye
what the mind imagines.
Had I been a painter with the brush I would doubtless have tried to keep
a permanent record of the visions and creations of that period when my
mind was so alertly responsive. But that instrument was not available to
me. What I had was only words and rhythms, and even with these I had not
yet learnt to draw firm strokes, and the colours went beyond their
margins. Still, like young folk with their first paint box, I spent the
livelong day painting away with the many coloured fancies of my new-born
youth. If these pictures are now viewed in the light of that
twenty-second year of my life, some features may be discerned even
through their crude drawing and blurred colouring.
I have said that the first book of my literary life came to an end with
the _Morning Songs_. The same subject was then continued under a
different rendering. Many a page at the outset of this Book, I am sure,
is of no value. In the process of making a new beginning much in the way
of superfluous preliminary has to be gone through. Had these been leaves
of trees they would have duly dropped off. Unfortunately, leaves of
books continue to stick fast even when they are no longer wanted. The
feature of these poems was the closeness of attention devoted even to
trifling things. _Pictures and Songs_ seized every opportunity of giving
value to these by colouring them with feelings straight from the heart.
Or, rather, that was not it. When the string of the mind is properly
attuned to the universe then at each point the universal song can awaken
its sympathetic vibrations. It was because of this music roused within
that nothing then felt trivial to the writer. Whatever my eyes fell upon
found a response within me. Like children who can play with sand or
stones or shells or whatever they can get (for the spirit of play is
within them), so also we, when filled with the song of youth, become
aware that the harp of the universe has its variously tuned strings
everywhere stretched, and the nearest may serve as well as any other for
our accompaniment, there is no need to seek afar.
(39) _An Intervening Period_
Between the _Pictures and Songs_ and the _Sharps and Flats_, a child's
magazine called the _Balaka_ sprang up and ended its brief days like an
annual plant. My second sister-in-law felt the want of an illustrated
magazine for children. Her idea was that the young people of the family
would contribute to it, but as she felt that that alone would not be
enough, she took up the editorship herself and asked me to help with
contributions. After one or two numbers of the _Balaka_ had come out I
happened to go on a visit to Rajnarayan Babu at Deoghur. On the return
journey the train was crowded and as there was an unshaded light just
over the only berth I could get, I could not sleep. I thought I might as
well take this opportunity of thinking out a story for the _Balaka_. In
spite of my efforts to get hold of the story it eluded me, but sleep
came to the rescue instead. I saw in a dream the stone steps of a temple
stained with the blood of victims of the sacrifice;--a little girl
standing there with her father asking him in piteous accents: "Father,
what is this, why all this blood?" and the father, inwardly moved,
trying with a show of gruffness to quiet her questioning. As I awoke I
felt I had got my story. I have many more such dream-given stories and
other writings as well. This dream episode I worked into the annals of
King Gobinda Manikya of Tipperah and made out of it a little serial
story, _Rajarshi_, for the _Balaka_.
Those were days of utter freedom from care. Nothing in particular seemed
to be anxious to express itself through my life or writings. I had not
yet joined the throng of travellers on the path of Life, but was a mere
spectator from my roadside window. Many a person hied by on many an
errand as I gazed on, and every now and then Spring or Autumn, or the
Rains would enter unasked and stay with me for a while.
But I had not only to do with the seasons. There were men of all kinds
of curious types who, floating about like boats adrift from their
anchorage, occasionally invaded my little room. Some of them sought to
further their own ends, at the cost of my inexperience, with many an
extraordinary device. But they need not have taken any extraordinary
pains to get the better of me. I was then entirely unsophisticated, my
own wants were few, and I was not at all clever in distinguishing
between good and bad faith. I have often gone on imagining that I was
assisting with their school fees students to whom fees were as
superfluous as their unread books.
Once a long-haired youth brought me a letter from an imaginary sister in
which she asked me to take under my protection this brother of hers who
was suffering from the tyranny of a stepmother as imaginary as herself.
The brother was not imaginary, that was evident enough. But his sister's
letter was as unnecessary for me as expert marksmanship to bring down a
bird which cannot fly.
Another young fellow came and informed me that he was studying for the
B.A., but could not go up for his examination as he was afflicted with
some brain trouble. I felt concerned, but being far from proficient in
medical science, or in any other science, I was at a loss what advice to
give him. But he went on to explain that he had seen in a dream that my
wife had been his mother in a former birth, and that if he could but
drink some water which had touched her feet he would get cured. "Perhaps
you don't believe in such things," he concluded with a smile. My belief,
I said, did not matter, but if he thought he could get cured, he was
welcome, with which I procured him a phial of water which was supposed
to have touched my wife's feet. He felt immensely better, he said. In
the natural course of evolution from water he came to solid food. Then
he took up his quarters in a corner of my room and began to hold
smoking parties with his friends, till I had to take refuge in flight
from the smoke laden air. He gradually proved beyond doubt that his
brain might have been diseased, but it certainly was not weak.
After this experience it took no end of proof before I could bring
myself to put my trust in children of previous births. My reputation
must have spread for I next received a letter from a daughter. Here,
however, I gently but firmly drew the line.
All this time my friendship with Babu Srish Chandra Magundar ripened
apace. Every evening he and Prija Babu would come to this little room of
mine and we would discuss literature and music far into the night.
Sometimes a whole day would be spent in the same way. The fact is my
_self_ had not yet been moulded and nourished into a strong and definite
personality and so my life drifted along as light and easy as an autumn
cloud.
(40) _Bankim Chandra_
This was the time when my acquaintance with Bankim Babu began. My first
sight of him was a matter of long before. The old students of Calcutta
University had then started an annual reunion, of which Babu Chandranath
Basu was the leading spirit. Perhaps he entertained a hope that at some
future time I might acquire the right to be one of them; anyhow I was
asked to read a poem on the occasion. Chandranath Babu was then quite a
young man. I remember he had translated some martial German poem into
English which he proposed to recite himself on the day, and came to
rehearse it to us full of enthusiasm. That a warrior poet's ode to his
beloved sword should at one time have been his favourite poem will
convince the reader that even Chandranath Babu was once young; and
moreover that those times were indeed peculiar.
While wandering about in the crush at the Students' reunion, I suddenly
came across a figure which at once struck me as distinguished beyond
that of all the others and who could not have possibly been lost in any
crowd. The features of that tall fair personage shone with such a
striking radiance that I could not contain my curiosity about him--he
was the only one there whose name I felt concerned to know that day.
When I learnt he was Bankim Babu I marvelled all the more, it seemed to
me such a wonderful coincidence that his appearance should be as
distinguished as his writings. His sharp aquiline nose, his compressed
lips, and his keen glance all betokened immense power. With his arms
folded across his breast he seemed to walk as one apart, towering above
the ordinary throng--this is what struck me most about him. Not only
that he looked an intellectual giant, but he had on his forehead the
mark of a true prince among men.
One little incident which occurred at this gathering remains indelibly
impressed on my mind. In one of the rooms a Pandit was reciting some
Sanskrit verses of his own composition and explaining them in Bengali to
the audience. One of the allusions was not exactly coarse, but somewhat
vulgar. As the Pandit was proceeding to expound this Bankim Babu,
covering his face with his hands, hurried out of the room. I was near
the door and can still see before me that shrinking, retreating figure.
After that I often longed to see him, but could not get an opportunity.
At last one day, when he was Deputy Magistrate of Hawrah, I made bold to
call on him. We met, and I tried my best to make conversation. But I
somehow felt greatly abashed while returning home, as if I had acted
like a raw and bumptious youth in thus thrusting myself upon him unasked
and unintroduced.
Shortly after, as I added to my years, I attained a place as the
youngest of the literary men of the time; but what was to be my position
in order of merit was not even then settled. The little reputation I
had acquired was mixed with plenty of doubt and not a little of
condescension. It was then the fashion in Bengal to assign each man of
letters a place in comparison with a supposed compeer in the West. Thus
one was the Byron of Bengal, another the Emerson and so forth. I began
to be styled by some the Bengal Shelley. This was insulting to Shelley
and only likely to get me laughed at.
My recognised cognomen was the Lisping Poet. My attainments were few, my
knowledge of life meagre, and both in my poetry and my prose the
sentiment exceeded the substance. So that there was nothing there on
which anyone could have based his praise with any degree of confidence.
My dress and behaviour were of the same anomalous description. I wore my
hair long and indulged probably in an ultra-poetical refinement of
manner. In a word I was eccentric and could not fit myself into everyday
life like the ordinary man.
At this time Babu Akshay Sarkar had started his monthly review, the
_Nabajiban_, New Life, to which I used occasionally to contribute.
Bankim Babu had just closed the chapter of his editorship of the _Banga
Darsan_, the Mirror of Bengal, and was busy with religious discussions
for which purpose he had started the monthly, _Prachar_, the Preacher.
To this also I contributed a song or two and an effusive appreciation
of _Vaishnava_ lyrics.
From now I began constantly to meet Bankim Babu. He was then living in
Bhabani Dutt's street. I used to visit him frequently, it is true, but
there was not much of conversation. I was then of the age to listen, not
to talk. I fervently wished we could warm up into some discussion, but
my diffidence got the better of my conversational powers. Some days
Sanjib Babu[54] would be there reclining on his bolster. The sight would
gladden me, for he was a genial soul. He delighted in talking and it was
a delight to listen to his talk. Those who have read his prose writing
must have noticed how gaily and airily it flows on like the sprightliest
of conversation. Very few have this gift of conversation, and fewer
still the art of translating it into writing.
This was the time when Pandit Sashadhar rose into prominence. Of him I
first heard from Bankim Babu. If I remember right Bankim Babu was also
responsible for introducing him to the public. The curious attempt made
by Hindu orthodoxy to revive its prestige with the help of western
science soon spread all over the country. Theosophy for some time
previously had been preparing the ground for such a movement. Not that
Bankim Babu even thoroughly identified himself with this cult. No shadow
of Sashadhar was cast on his exposition of Hinduism as it found
expression in the _Prachar_--that was impossible.
I was then coming out of the seclusion of my corner as my contributions
to these controversies will show. Some of these were satirical verses,
some farcical plays, others letters to newspapers. I thus came down into
the arena from the regions of sentiment and began to spar in right
earnest.
In the heat of the fight I happened to fall foul of Bankim Babu. The
history of this remains recorded in the _Prachar_ and _Bharati_ of those
days and need not be repeated here. At the close of this period of
antagonism Bankim Babu wrote me a letter which I have unfortunately
lost. Had it been here the reader could have seen with what consummate
generosity Bankim Babu had taken the sting out of that unfortunate
episode.