Letters from a Young Poet (43 page)

Shilaidaha
11 March 1895

There are a number of things that never grow old for me—perhaps when I'm far away their brightness may dim under the pressure of other material things, but then, as soon as I come face-to-face with them again, immediately all the old feelings are refreshed in my mind. There are times when my exile in the mofussil becomes a faded memory in Calcutta, and then I may think that my Padma's shores have perhaps grown old—but the surprising thing is that the moment I come here I see that everything is still bright and
full of wonder, like that first glance at each other on your wedding day [
śubhadṛshti
]. Every day in the evening as I walk on the sand I think of this—that which I found novel the other day still feels new to me today—exactly the same feeling fills my heart in exactly the same way, as if I had come here for the first time today. This is a thing of great joy and wonder for me. I think that perhaps all the letters I have written you from all these places for such a long time have the same feeling in them. Again and again I've said the same thing, expressed the same enthusiasm in the same language. I can't help it—it's because I experience the same feeling in a new way every time. I often wish I could take all the letters I've written you and, reading them, travel again through the narrow path of my letters' old familiar landscapes gathered over the mornings, afternoons and evenings of so many days. I have tried to hold on to so many days and so many moments—these must be captive in your box of letters—the moment I set my eyes on them, those old days will surround me on every side. The stuff in them that's to do with my personal life is not that valuable—but the things that I have gathered from outside, which are each an item of rare beauty or invaluable enjoyment, are the incomparable earnings of my life—those are things which perhaps nobody else but I have seen, and which are kept only within the pages of those letters, and nowhere else in the world—nobody will perhaps appreciate their value more than me. Give me your letters once, Bob, and I'll copy out just the experiences of beauty from them into an exercise book. Because if I live for a long time then I'm sure to grow old; then all these days will become things of remembrance and consolation. At that time I will want to walk slowly in the evening light within the accumulated beauty of the days of my past life. Then this Padma's sandbank of today and the soft, peaceful, spring moonlight will return to me afresh in exactly the same way. My days and nights of joy and sorrow are not woven together like this anywhere else in my poetry or prose.

Calcutta
15 March 1895

I'm not exactly sure what I've been doing this morning. I haven't done any work at all, perhaps I haven't thought very much either. There was a bit of breeze from the south, and every joint of the body had loosened with the warmth; I was lying quietly by myself, rolling around, turning the pages of the newspaper, knowing all the while that there were letters to be written,
proof-sheets
to be corrected, writing to be done for
S
ā
dhan
ā, kāchāri work to be completed, accounts to be presented to Bābāmaśāẏ, and yet I felt no regret at all for this laziness—perhaps the body and mind lacked the energy for regret. But this basanta morning breeze really wastes me. Just letting this generous warm wind caress the whole body seems like a duty worth doing—it seems as though the flow of this sweet breeze is a conversation that nature holds with me. That I was born in this world, that the spring breeze came and touched me, that the smell of the
kanakcāňpā
flower filled my head, that occasionally a morning such as this came to me in obeisance like a message from the gods—in the brief life of a man how can this be insignificant! Not just the writing of poetry or the editing of
S
ā
dhan
ā—all these forgotten, unconscious moments too are an important part of a successful life. That's why sometimes this sort of overflowing laziness doesn't give rise to any regret. If this time had been spent listening to a good song one would not have regretted that either. On some days, for me, nature functions exactly as a song does. This breeze, this light, all these small sounds, make me completely inert. Then I can quite comprehend that there is a pleasure in merely ‘being'—that ‘I am' is in itself a tremendous affair—in all of nature this is the most ancient and all-encompassing joy of all. It is when your mind is completely relaxed in this way that your relation with the outside is the most intimate.

Calcutta
16 March 1895

The argument about good and bad is an endless one, Bob. Based on what must we judge the good or bad in men: the contour of their mind or the results of their work? If we were to judge only from the results, then someone who has hurt a man accidentally and someone who has done so intentionally will both be found equally guilty—we would give the same punishment to the man who has done the deed in a fit of anger and one who has calmly planned it. Of course, whether an act is good or bad is one thing, and whether a certain man is good or bad is quite another. We aren't all-knowing; it's true that we sometimes judge a man by his work. And that's exactly why we don't always judge correctly. But the example you give from Shelley's life is entirely different—it proves that even if a man may be good at many things, in some contexts he may be morally unresponsive; that he may, in a particular scenario, be blind to the hurt he causes others because he is so immersed in his own pleasure—that's not a quality that deserves praise. There's no legitimate reason to sit down and try to turn Shelley's faults into good qualities. But just because he had a fault doesn't mean he did not have any talents. Many much less talented people might not have hurt other people like he did. Shelley's life does not prove in any way that depending on the person a bad deed may become a good one. But it does prove that no man is completely good. The good and the bad in every man are weighed and he's labelled good or bad according to the weight of the good in relation to the bad. Depending on their own character, some people praise Shelley highly and some people criticize him—but only god knows the real Shelley. Since man's relation with man is temporary, it is natural that men should judge each other on the basis of their impermanent lives alone—he with whom man is
tied in an eternal relationship has a completely different method of judgement. Quite possibly, many reprobates will find a higher seat in heaven than many saints. St Paul, St Augustine—if they had died young, who would have known of their real greatness? But that doesn't mean one should deceive one's self by saying these things. A wrongdoing is a wrongdoing—since we have come to this world for a short time it is better if we can leave it after trying our best to make each other happy and by creating a permanent source of happiness. We have all gathered together in this guest house for just one evening—if I spend that little bit of time making others happy by helping them, comforting them, and so on, only then will I be a good man. If, in pursuit of my own pleasure, I torture somebody else needlessly, that person will call me a bad man, and I don't think it's reasonable to sit and disprove that by any sort of sophistry.

Calcutta
Monday, 18 March 1895

A majority of readers generally really liked that story published in
S
ā
dhan
ā in Māgh—that's why a lot of people are very annoyed with the review in
S
ā
hitya
. It's impossible to gauge why people like or dislike something—and even if you do, you cannot shape your talent in response. That's why I think that the assessment of those on the outside is completely useless and often harmful for me. A man's polestar and refuge is the ideal that he has within him. It's necessary to elevate that ideal as far as one can by reading, listening, thinking and practising literature. The manner in which literary analysis is engaged with in our country is completely uneducated. There's no point in hearing: ‘I liked it' or ‘I didn't like it'. That only gives you a particular person's opinion; it
doesn't give you the truth of that opinion. If that opinion comes from somebody who is sufficiently capable of appreciation or experienced in literary affairs then even that might make you think a little. But just any person's opinion has no value at all. Our country lacks good reviewing skills—and the primary reason is that the people of our country do not have an intimate acquaintance with literature. They don't exist in the midst of literary creativity. They don't have any real experience of what's easy, what's hard, which is genuine and which made-up, what is impermanent and what is permanent, which is
sentiment
and which
sentimentalism
. Until a great variety and quantity of good literature is published in our country, the time for literary analysis will not arrive. First we must create an ideal, then analysts can begin their education from that ideal. Just as you cannot swim if there is no water, so too you cannot have good criticism without good literature. I've noticed that the older I get, the less dependent I become on the opinions of others—praise or criticism doesn't create as much of an impact—perhaps one has gotten used to both to a great extent. Trust in my own judgement too is perhaps gradually becoming firmer and more deep-rooted.

Calcutta
20 March 1895

Do you know why one particularly likes Shelley more than many other important people? His personality was not prone to doubt; he never analysed himself or others—his character was, in a way, whole. That's why one has a special affection for children or, in many instances, women—they're easy, natural; they haven't deconstructed and then constructed themselves around their own debates or
theories
. The beauty of Shelley's character is that there's no
trace of any arguments, disputes or discussions in it. He has become what he has through his own inexorable creative strength. He's not responsible for himself at all—he's not even aware of when he has hurt someone or when he's made someone happy—and others too cannot be sure that they know him with any certainty. Just this much is clear—he is what he is—there was no way he could have been anything else. He's characteristically generous and beautiful, like outdoor nature, and his personality too is naturally without doubt or hesitation with regard to himself as well as others. There's an immense attractiveness about people with this completeness of character. Such people are always forgiven and indulged—no fault seems to stick to them with any degree of permanence. Their nature seems naked, like Adam and Eve were at the dawn of time, and, for that very reason, by another reckoning they seem eternally mysterious. They have not yet tasted the fruit of knowledge from the tree and so they live in a constant age of truth. It is very difficult to easily fall in love with those who think, who discuss, who exercise their judgement before they act, who know what good and bad are. Such people may be respected, looked up to, and trusted, but they are not readily loved. They may be able to sacrifice themselves, but others don't sacrifice their lives for them. I have written this in many of my essays, that man's mind is worthy of respect, but it is not an object of love—the real, genuinely important people are unthinking and spontaneous: they attract people towards themselves without effort, without logic, simply because they're irresistible.

Calcutta
2 April 1895

I was stuck with that lecture the whole day today as well. It's so difficult to express one's self in Bengali exactly as you want that
writing becomes a form of wrestling. It's difficult not only because the language is inadequate—those who're going to hear it are the sort who have generally never thought about anything in depth, that's why it becomes necessary to unpack all the layers and explain everything at length. As a result, something that would have shown its
originality
and its brightness had it been written with more economy and brevity is diluted and over-worked, and this makes it completely worthless—making me feel terribly dissatisfied. I have repeatedly seen that Bengalis cannot easily follow a thread of argumentation, they just want to revel in the excitement of
feeling
—there's no account of the hundreds of things that are lost in transition between an essay and a lecture.

Calcutta
4 April 1895

Nowadays, impelled by work, I've descended to the first floor. The wooden nest bounded by a balcony that I had constructed for myself in one corner of the south veranda has now become my ā
dd
ā [rendezvous]. There's no furniture in the room, only that Chinese desk you people had given me at the centre of it, and just one chair. You might say that this is a new discovery for me—I've never been able to put my mind to writing in my second-floor room, and I've always thought it was Calcutta's fault, but now, ever since I've moved to this room, I see that there's no problem with writing and that I can concentrate quite well…. Also, not having any furniture in the room is a great help. I see that there's a great necessity for
plain living, high thinking
—one must tear up one's ties with material objects as far as possible. Material objects do not establish any cerebral relation with the mind, they don't bring any news to it that's new—the furniture remains in the same shape
and form forever, only becoming shabbier with time, functioning unnoticed as weighty obstructions to the mind. If one collects as much of the sky and light as one can and lets them occupy as much space as possible around the furniture, then the mind completes its work freely and enthusiastically. Gagan's garden being located right in front is also a great help. If I could have a garden next to the Ganga, and in a corner right next to the river, a neat and tidy room of paved stone, clear and calm, with a
couch
to sit and lean back upon and a
desk
to write on, and all the rest only garden and sky and water—the fragrance of blossoming flowers and the call of birds—then I could quietly keep doing my duty as a poet. One can make do with far less than this in the world, and far more than this often brings not an iota of happiness to many.