The Deceased Deer, Spring Moonlight and Shahaduz Zaman’s Jibanananda

# 1927: a young Jibanananda Das musters courage to send his first collection of poems—Jhara Palok—by post to Rabindranath Tagore, requesting the great man for his opinion. Tagore reads the poems and replies to the accompanying note. Few people knew Jibanananda at that time as a poet. But Tagore’s sincerity to respond to his interlocutors is legendary. What Tagore writes can be summed up somewhat like this: “There is no doubt that you are blessed with poetic sensibility. But I do not understand why you should announce a war—jabardasti-with language and words. This eccentricity of gesture becomes needless ostadi. In all large compositions there is always some kind of shantih—surpassing calmness. Wherever I see that element missing, I feel worried about the staying power of such an art form. To show force is not exactly a thing by which one achieves power. Often the opposite happens” (Shahaduz Zaman, 2019). Such a note was surprising coming from Tagore, especially since he was unusually polite or quiet, even with his detractors. Besides, Jibanananda’s ostadi with language did not even begin at that stage! Jibanananda was just an unknown mufassil poet at that time. Anybody would be devastated with such a rude letter, and that too coming from Tagore! Jibanananda did not flinch. With great composure and self-confidence he replies to Tagore: “I am honoured to merit your response. Indeed, young Bengali writers are blessed to have such a great savant-like you blazing bright over the firmament. I am in no way fit for such large bounty coming from you. But I worship a certain writerly shakti and try to connect that to all that is benevolent in the cosmos. Your note has set me thinking. In much high art, I often notice a great thirst for happiness or dukhha—sorrow. The poet often strives to achieve surpassing truth by travelling to the jyotirlok or in the poison infested netherworld—paataal. But even in such places, it does not seem that poetry could achieve calmness or composure. Indeed, serenity is a thing in the Greek universe. But I do not see much of that in Dante or Shelley. Does that make them lesser poets or their art temporary, I wonder? There could be various moods. The sky has so many colours—sometimes darkness deep, flushed with light at other times; endless blue now, earth’s green reflected in it at other moments. Can we say one such hue is more beautiful than the other? Sometimes the changing colour of the kites plays with sky’s changing hues. That seems permanent to me. Perhaps there is some inward tone and lilt to creation? If true creativity is absent, can shantih make such art timeless? I write here what I feel. You will forgive my talkativeness with your largeness of soul. My bhaktipurna pranama to you” (Shahaduz Zaman, 2019). This description appears in one of the most powerful creative biographies written in Bangla in recent times: Ekjon Kamolalebu (Someone, an Orange) by Shahaduz Zaman. The work follows a chronos, but time is weaved through an inner, creative story. The vicissitudes of the poet’s life is woven within the experiences of a most troubled and moving time. And yet there is a constant return and renewal of phrases and ideas, inner turmoil and psychic conditions—as if everything comes together to create a rich palimpsest over the narration. In young Jibanananda, who was financially in a precarious situation at that time and temperamentally deeply taciturn, we detect a man well adept to argue, especially equipped to cite Western instances of artworks in defense of his position. He was an itinerant professor of English literature. We see a man who nurtures a strong sense of creativity and self-confidence about his capacities, though still not recognized and acknowledged by the world. But most importantly, here is a battle that has erupted between two differing sensibilities. A new and restive existential quest is about to interrogate all that is estimated as surpassing, harmonious, and in order in the cosmos. Jibanananda has deftly transferred the onus of art to a variety of frames and dispositions that the artist may nurture with reference to the changing natural and ambient circumstances. The subjectivity of the artist is deeply material and pantheistic. He wants poetry to renew its bonds with blood and grime, with ennui and sexuality, hunger, cruelty, and despair. Following this, there are meanderings through difficult pathways in order to emerge from such states, though not necessarily unscathed. And always: attempts to forge a new language, sieved through the uncanny-everyday, to express such restive thoughts. # Upon acquiring a master’s degree in literature, Jibanananda joins as a junior tutor in City College, Kolkata. Not very adept in the ways and attitudes that the big city demands, he lives in Presidency College boarding house; reads sundry magazines and books. And he writes in his diary “We have no taste for enjoyment…nor have we any instinct for aesthetics. We are content with fourth-hand men and materials…we have no complaints if the chair is bug-ridden and creaking if we can manage to sit on it somehow….We have lost the iconoclast’s spirit” (Shahaduz Zaman, 2019). He feels Kolkata is akin to a prison, where people, zombie-like, move about with no destination. And at this time he loses the City College job. His first book of poetry has not been well received. Jibanananda begins to feel he ‘shall survive’ to see himself ‘impotent and forgotten.’ He begins to come closer to his self. At that point he receives an unexpected piece of news from his father at Barisal: that with the help of a mutual contact, he had managed to procure for Jibanananda a job in the English department of Ramjas College, Delhi. Having no choice as an unemployed man, Jibanananda rushes to Delhi. Delhi proves to be even more inhospitable to him. The chilly winter and loneliness make him go inward. And the Principal and his colleagues are most distant and unforthcoming in nature. Perhaps few were prejudiced against