The Return of the Stone Age
[R. Chetankranti, Aatmadroh: New Delhi, Rajkamal Publications, 2023] Nothing catches the pungent flavour of masochist masculinity — and the helpless, misplaced obverse of such a state—which flags our schizoid times, as does the poetry of Ramkumar Chetankranti. His third volume of poetry आत्मद्रोह (Self-Mutilation) arrived yesterday by post. And everything else has receded to the background since. The power of what is pent up right now is given a ruthless channel in his phrases and metaphors: a torrential flow of politico-psychosexual-garish-melancholic-self-defeating desire. A world of relentless self-flagellation, which drowns itself in a cocktail of vengeance and carnival mania—hoping to arrive at an ever-elusive somewhere. This is a greatly risky zone to traverse, for the language and world that the poet shows us will not be easily digested by the kind of people who wish to stay ostrich like, scared of entering the zone of vengeful, amoral outbursts of the immediate quenching of desire which occupies our times. The first lines of the title poem have already turned into a prophetic epigram of sorts:और फिर देश यातना के लिए हाथ जोड़कर खड़ा हो गया सब एक आवाज़ में बोले, हमें दुःख दो और ज्यादा दुःख और ज्यादा यातना और ज्यादा पीड़ा वे सुख से ऊब चुके थे… (And then the country , beseeching pain, with folded hands, stood up/ And uttered in one unified voice/ Give us torment/ Afflict us with agony/More stinging agony/Even more pain/ They were bored of happiness…) Slavoj Zizek, his curiosity piqued about the industrial production of testicle-crushers in Nazi Germany which were used against Jews and gypsies, tries a Google search, and is bemused to find that there are all kinds of ball-crushers available in the market—stainless steeled, diamond-studded, spare, ornate or custom made. Pleasure in renunciation is a deadly mission. Genuine puritans are able to master it to the hilt and spread it among the people. Chetankranti has been showing us the mirror right from the piercing utterances in शोकनाच /Shoknaach. A generation (or does it really change every decade as claimed sometimes?) is coming into being after the 1990s and its contours are becoming more pronounced as the new century moves forward—“we were not revolutionaries/we were merely restless beings”: हम क्रांतिकारी नहीं थेहम सिर्फ अस्थिर थेऔर इस अस्थिरता में कई बारकुछ नाजुक मौक़ों परजो हमें कहीं से कहीं पहुंचा सकते थेअराजक हो जाते थेलोग जो क्रांति के बारे में किताबें पढ़ते रहते थेहमें क्रांतिकारी मान लेते थेजबकि हम क्रांतिकारी नहीं थेहम सिर्फ अस्थिर थे This applies to all hues of ‘revolutionaries’ of our times (barring very, very few resolute exceptions). His readers know that this very realization has led to Chetan’s Seelampur—a representative metaphor for the masochist location of pent up and self destructive desire. The educated are totally alienated from those who are being used, are dangerous, are preyed upon, are trapped, are naïve too—in Seelampur. Those who read books look at the denizens of this other world, and instead of walking halfway and offering a helping hand, turn themselves into numb ostriches: पढ़े-लिखे लोगों के लिए/वे पहेली थे/वे बैठे उन्हें बस देखते रहते/उनकी समझ में न आता/ की वे कब कहाँ और कैसे बने/क्यों हैं कौन हैं क्या हैं! To describe this class of the petty bourgeoisie, happy in its world of self-gratification, Chetan deploys a lovely phrase: छोटे छोटे बड़े लोग (Little big people). But as hinted earlier, this zone is an amorphous one to get into. For there cannot be any clear answer as to how much the poet listens to the sound and tenor of such self-mutilated bands and how much he castigates such mass ardour. Is his poetry a realist assessment of deep psychic turbulence? Or is it laid out to provoke and shake us from our slumber? Are his utterances being read by the people he addresses, beyond the polarized universe? This much is certain though: he is less forgiving of those who are managing the show, the magicians who stay in the background rather than the puppets who walk into their hands. For the former are the demagogues who enjoy most the conversion of people’s happiness into the black rain of blood and semen over very changing seasons. For the God stands aloof, with a purpose: एक हाथ में शिशन और एक हाथ में चाकू लिए खड़ा हो | (Penis in one hand, knife in another). To use James Joyce’s pregnant phrase, used in a different context: “invisible, refined out of existence, indifferent, paring his fingernails.” Such all engulfing desire for holding on to power has only one dread, a singular worry— पावर में इक कमी थी, तन्हाई से डरती थी (‘वीरता पर विचलित’ से उद्धृत ) | Power fears aloofness. This is the lyrical zone of detachment which Chetan has kept aside for the kindred. The outside. Only this much. Is aloofness poetry then? Beyond dreams and greed: वह तुम्हारे झुलसे बालों में/ बारिश करेगा/ वह तुम्हें रोने की जगह देगा| Not unlike in his previous anthologies, here too, Chetan takes us to the nadir of expectations, but his poetry never despairs about the future, for one day—all news cycle, busy printing presses, television anchors, rapt spectators –everything must fall silent: for everyone shall understand what is going on, with a collective sense of helplessness. On that day: हैरानी हैरान /और शैतानी निस्तब्ध| (Bewilderment shall be bewildered/ And devilry cold). One can stop at this point. But it needs mentioning that there is another track of poems blossoming in all three anthologies which acts as a balm to readers who dare to pass the volcanic lava and soot of his generational outcry. This set of poems shows the other side of Chetankranti—softest of souls that he is: and that line wrestles with fathomless love and pain. On pain, for instance he says: वह भीतर कहीं बो दिया होगा /बहुत पहले कभी /और सींचा नहीं गया होगा /इसलिए पानी-पानी पुकारता रहता है | (Not irrigated, the embedded seed of pain cries: Water, Water!) But that story must be saved for some other day. *** adminhumanitiesunderground.org
A Century Shimmers like a Star-studded Sky
[Amitabh: Samastipur aur anya Kavitaen. New Delhi:Nibandh, 2023] Prasanta Chakravarty The tightrope of real intimacy means trying to cultivate our common capabilities—for life is unembellished, plane and full of unexpected miracles; even in barbarous times: जीवन सपाट सीधा और सरल है | Especially in such times as ours: since all veneer stands exposed. It is the hardest of tasks—to shore easy and unadorned intimacy; walking step by little step with the times, and yet trying to leap across its narrow precincts, with a heart that is too large to accept pettiness, too devastated and restive to remain calm and poised. As the imaginative, mutinous soul brings the full force of intimacy to the reader, it runs the risk of self-exposure. Exposing the self is the obverse of self-indulgent confession. A prophetic minstrel does not skirt time; he confronts it. That is the only way to reveal, and remind, a bewildered humanity of the live and mobile collective forces that throb around us. We refuse to acknowledge, and participate in, acts of common humanity. So the poet hammers home the humble and forgotten origins of life-force again and again in order to shine light on its wondrous interiors. The poet reminds us that only by losing respectability can one rid oneself of the savage desire to remain relevant for the sake of mere convenience. So, at the very basic level a series of motifs and situations in Amitabh’s maiden anthology concerns not the hypocrisy in our lives, but the apathy that comes from craving good living at any cost. Not apathy, but the frivolity of such an existence. Not frivolity, but a craftiness that is at once cruel and petulant—a devastating cocktail unleashed in public life and personal relationships. With razor sharp irony, he brings forth the smallness of our desires: the kiss turns into a subject of debate (मैंने चुम्बन पर बहस का एक बोल्ड प्रस्ताव दिया), a high-end god with cigarettes on his lips hold-forth in his make-belief paradise(एक देवता का चेहरा याद है मुझे/वे बंगाली थे/ उनकी सिगरेट कभी नहीं बुझती थी), vulture like care-givers wax eloquent over dead workmen (तुम्हारे मृत चहरे में चमक ढूंढ रहे थे), banal celebrations are rife (खुद को ख़तरे से बहार पा रहे सभी खुशनसीब देशवासियों/तुम्हे बहुत बहुत जन्मदिन मुबारक), deep thought is summoned only to call out and cancel others (ख़ारिज करना आसान काम नहीं है/लोगों को ख़ारिज करने से पहले लोग/ गरम समोसे और ठंडी मिठाई मंगवाकर रखते है)| Indeed, as Amitabh imagines, we are not happy with one big sun that has been apportioned for us; we live by little suns of avarice and envy instead (हर मौके के लायक जेब में एकाध सूरज हम रख कर चलें). This phenomenon has percolated even among those who do value other, simpler modes of happiness (मोटा पैसा फिर भी दिन रात उनका पीछा करता है). Hence, we make sure that our children are kept away from every trace of violence that besets the world, and we keep them away from poetry. Having been fed some rancid fodder, like pigs we prefer to die every hour: (सूअर पालना असंभव हो गया है /सिर्फ मल खाकर मर रहे हैं सूअर). The shepherds—the wise-ones, have deserted us. How do we now relate to our surroundings? We physically live in our mohallas, but our heart and soul lie elsewhere—in some glossy, superior universe: hence the disjunction with our own world. The guilt of this inner desertion has to be either sublimated or disowned tout court, at once with exuberance and cynicism. We are well aware of the nature of the battle-lines, but we refrain from taking sides, hoping to save our little havens. But living actually does not matter to those who wish to save their own skin. No life is sacrosanct, no death disturbs anymore: इनमे से किसी की भी जान की/तुम्हारे लिए कोई क़ीमत नहीं है/ तुम यह नहीं कहते/तुम बचे हुए हो क्योंकि ये मर सकते हैं/एक दूसरे को मार सकते हैं/ तुम ये नहीं कहते | Sediments of Habit Amitabh is mutinous and ironic, but never a cynic. The poems try to understand the psychology of our times—what beats beneath such apathy? Why such colossal waste? The lynch mob comprises of actual human beings—with sentiments and affections. But do they babble within, unable to communicate or channelize their anger? Do we consider ourselves righteous and beyond smallness? Are we not all vulnerable within: Like the tall palm tree, which stands all powerful and self-contained during day, only to reveal itself as lifeless shadow after dusk? Are long nights necessary from time to time in order to remove distances that separate us? The poet is worried about those who remain for counting the dead, those who die million deaths before dying. Cannibalism breeds in our minds: सारे आदमखोर दिमाग में लड़ते हैं | The metaphor of our times is indoor cricket for the poet—the din is so deafening that the game itself becomes secondary. How has the noise of such communal feelings and homogeneity of hurt identities penetrated our kitchens, classrooms and media desks? Amitabh undercuts constantly the apparently serious business of difference among humans, the superfluity of adult-transactions and arbitrations. We all know that pistols are merely make-belief toys among brothers from childhood—how can they turn against each other? Have we confused toys for real killing machines? Violence lies just on the other side of attachment. Lynching, when the moment comes for one, arrives in the midst of everydayness (जब तुम हमारी जान लेने घर में दाखिल होवोगे /हम तुम्हे खली चौकी पर चिंतामग्न पड़े हुए मिलेंगे) | There is nothing dramatic about dying—it is as unadorned and simple as living because there is no possibility of personal mourning anymore (हालांकि की में जानता हूँ इस क़ातिल समय में/शोक मनाने का ये व्यक्तिगत तरीका कोई तरीका नहीं है). One source of the impasse lies in the fact that all conviction is fractured at this time; there are no clear paths for articulation: मेरे पास कुछ यक़ीन है/वे पक्के नहीं हैं |
The Accelerated Grimace and the Ground for our Beseeching
It is an unanticipated coincidence that the collected works of Parthapratim Kanjilal, a major poet writing in Bangla for the past half a century, has been published just as George Steiner has breathed his last. There is no connection that I know of between the two, of course, save perhaps an investment in life’s mysteries. And a comprehensive rejection of life’s mystifications. Both Steiner and Kanjilal, in their own ways, have spent their lifetimes with the ineffable and the unspeakable. At bedrock level, the artist is ill at ease with social conventions. Since he is distracted and maintains an ironic or heroic relationship with all that he sees around, what we now call ‘news cycles’ do not disturb him in their everydayness. Doomed to a vision in an alien world, his dedication lies elsewhere. He begins to seek and extract a pattern, rather. It is his distraction that especially readies him bit by every single bit, towards enacting the role of a scapegoat for society. He is not really one of us. To be in the middle of everything (what in Bangla is best expressed in the phrase ছা-পোষা, culturally speaking) means maintaining a divided allegiance to life’s satisfactions and annoyances. If you are annoyed when your scheme about the right kind of society is challenged by other equally vested imaginations, for instance, you develop scruples and begin devising ‘techniques of trouble’ and anger, without having corresponding investments for what you actually vouch for or profess. These add up to what Steiner would call ‘apocalyptic seminars.’ Such seminars and techniques define diurnal bourgeois existence. By contrast, a leap of spirit marks the utterances of Kanjilal, especially radiant in one of his early collections of poems titled Debi. I use the word utterance advisedly, for here is an anthology which directly addresses the turbulent 1970s and yet transfers the experience of that time/space allegorically by invoking the tremendous energy force of a goddess who can renew faith in living only through a cleansing of whatever is vapid, stale and ignoble in this earth. The incantations in Debi are about a conjuncture of history (shondhi-khon), when temporality turns cruel and the antidote—if any—is equally fatal: “অতিসৌম্যা, অতিরৌদ্রা, প্রচন্ড নায়িকা সন্ধিক্ষণে”. The unleashing of energy is at once benevolent, lethal and unwavering. Kanjilal is the worshipper of distilled wrath, away from ressentiment and bad faith—something that eludes our chicken-hearted projects of ethical progressiveness. Steiner has been arguing for such clarity all along in his work: that beyond all institutions there is a mole in the cellar. And so Kanjilal, an avid reader of Dante also says: “দেবী, মুদ্রা ব্যবহারে আজ সকল সম্পর্কগুলি হয়েছে কুটিল/অস্পষ্ট, একদেশদর্শী, বৃদ্ধ. যাকে পিতা বলে জানি/ তিনি অবান্ধব, অবান্তর, যাকে জেনেছি প্রেমিকা, সেও নয়/ হৃদয়জননী, যে বন্ধু, তার ব্যবহারে থেকে যায় অনভিভাবক/ উদাসীন দৃষ্টিপাত. মানুষের মুদ্রা ব্যবহারে, যশ ব্যবহারে/ এ সকল বিপত্তি হয়েছে/ আজ কোন কবিতার স্তব শুদ্ধ ভাবে শুক্লতার সঙ্গে তুলে আনবো/পুনর্বার হিরণ্ময় হবে তোমার রূপের অমলতা.” The degeneration of relationships, the gradual diminishing of the very scope of our roles in life happens when designs take over our inner restless equilibrium. Fathers turn friendless and meaningless; lovers are no longer situated within our innermost sanctums, friends are no more our guardian-angels—they turn indifferent instead. Clarity and relationalities are the first casualties during difficult and uneven times. Hence, a material invocation of the cleansing deity through poetry. It is hard to be outraged these days. A severe domestication happens each moment. We seem to be specialists in accommodating almost everything. And outrage has been flattened to utter meaninglessness. Denis Donaghue had long ago cautioned us with the following insight: “The most telling consequence of the domestication of outrage is that, far from disturbing the security of ordinary things, it confirms it.” The artist too is no longer the maker of his art but an example of a man whose art exemplifies certain rituals of his doings. Kanjilal’s poetry is a direct assault on such domestication, urging us repeatedly to dive beneath all smallness and despair. For in the netherworld there burns a divine torch, untouched yet by guilt and sin: “এদিকে পৃথিবী মশাল নেভায়/ জ্বেলে নেয় ফের নেভা মশাল/ স্পর্শ করো রূপ, রস, বহন করো তারই স্বাদ/গ্লানির বহু নীচে জ্বলছে বৃশ্চিক অপাপবিদ্ধ.” This is a dare, a dare to consistently work towards reaching that underground fountain of the ineffable, especially in times when everything around us seems like a lazy journalist’s descriptive report: the connivance of the media foreshortens our very living. The entirety of Debi is a riddle where poetry, mutiny and incantation find a natural confluence. Rarely has Kanjilal given us any hint as to what the material manifestations of such a apocalyptic charge are: “ছাত্রদল উঠে আসে, জেনেছে ইতিহাস আহুত আত্মার সমতুল/মিতভাষ অর্ধবাক, স্পষ্ট তত নয়/যা হলে জীবনের নির্ভার কেবল জীবিত থাকা. বাঁচতে দেখা শুধু.” The new generations, students who pass through such terrible times, know that conjunctures are like invoked souls: foggy and almost wordless. One gropes. In such times the real mutiny is to stay afloat, to keep oneself away from all fake and domesticated spectacles and arrive at the simplicity of directness, of love. Indeed, the fatal conjuncture of history, if it has to be unshackled from all falsity and bourgeois liberal piety, must be joined in a war that is shorn of all figures of speech: “উপমাবিহীন কালে যুদ্ধ শুরু করো , সকল মুগ্ধতা দূরে যাক.” Foremost, this war must cleanse another lesser battle that rages within us, way before one takes on what we think of as the enemy. The enemy is within: all kinds of factionalism and squeamishness, played out through useless labour, by our trading of mutual humiliation, abuse and envy—every single day, every passing minute. This internal battle attests to the poverty of our souls. Such poverty must be transcended: “ভুলে যাই, আমার রয়েছে এই দারিদ্রস্বভাব…/ আমার চরিত্র থাকে নিষ্ফল শ্রমে. অপমানে-প্রতিঅপমানে/ ভুলে যাই, ঈর্ষা আক্রোশের এই সর্পবাণ তোমার উজ্বল কিরীট বিচ্যুত শুধু করে/তাতে তুমি বিজিত হবে না/…মধুঋতু মধুবায়ু মধুক্ষর পৃথিবীর ধবননে–উৎসবে/ আরো একজন যাবে.” The
Poetry Written By The Javelin
Prasanta Chakravarty ________ What the poet produces is akin to the javelin thrower’s act—a bit of the soil from the entrails of the earth, which hides concealed spots of blood. Ephemera it is; mere unearthed bits of soil. All around us are strewn these passing tableaux of shining ephemera, if we are able to touch their myriad forms, feels Monika Kumar, who is one of the leading contemporary poets writing in Hindi. Her maiden book is titled आशचर्यवत\ (Ascharyavat—Wondrous. Denotes both the state of wonderment itself/time that causes a state or wonder or the ability to feel wondrous. Just published from Vani Prakashan. Perhaps we could start from the middle, or stay in the middle, as Kumar does, in one of her finely wrought poems: बीच से शुरू करते हैं (Let us Begin at the Middle).To be attuned to the many miracles that are continually happening around us, perhaps we need to appreciate the role of the ongoing process of living itself—which means the capacity to remain in res medias and appreciate the staying power of things and relationships that bind us. The middle is neither the zone of hastened invasion nor that of an end which often engenders boredom and shrillness. मुझे तुम बीच का कौर खिलाना, न पहले जिसे तुम भूख के मारे निगल जाते हो न आख़िरी जिसे कहते हुए तुम बिरक्त हो जाते हो मुझे बीच का निवाला खिलाना, जिसे तुम बेध्यानी में बमौज खाते हो Easy marveling at the trivial and the ordinary comes with a sudden realization of this sense of बेध्यानी में बमौज(unselfconscious gaiety)throughout the collection. And we, the readers, acquiesce willfully to this magnetic pull—brought on par with the seeds and the flowers, the fruits and the animals. In fact, the animals that arrive in, and quicken, her poems are often the ones that populate our diurnal existence—ants, lizards, squirrels and rabbits. Do we pay enough attention to our feral neighbours? If we did we would know that— # अभी हम खड़े है उस बिंदु पर जहाँ हम चाहते हैं यह घर चींटों से मुक्त हो जाये और चींटे करते हैं कल्पनाएँ दुनिया की हर चीज़ काश बताशा हो जाये # छिपकलियाँ एकांत के पार्षद की तरह घर में रहतीं और मैं व्याकुलता की बन्दी की तरह # गिलहरियों को अलबत्ता मेरी बातों में कोई रूचि नहीं उन्हें दिलचस्पी है सिर्फ रोटी के टुकड़ों में जो स्कुल के बच्चे अपने डब्बे से गिरा देते हैं # यह नरम- नरम जो बचा हैं खरगोश में उस मासूमियत का शेष है जो कछुए के साथ दौड़ लगाने की स्पर्धा में थक कर नींद बन गयी In each of these sections Kumar deftly changes the viewpoint from the human to the non-human and the world immediately turns upside down and kaleidoscopic. And then she brings us crashing down to the comic situation where we are seen wallowing and indulging in our exaggerated sense of self-hood. In a similar vein there are some exquisitely refined and intimate portraits of the botanical—flowers, seeds and fruits—which cocoon our daily lives even as we are mostly oblivious to them. The wondrous comes to us in many forms; and the world that Monika Kumar opens up for us, the unexpected turns that her lines take, are startling indeed. The local habitations and surroundings turn strikingly vivid. And it is here that she gives us a chance to delve deeper, and vertically, some more: she often begins to take a flight in many of her poems, where the revelation begins to take a truly astonishing shape, and yet often the process then stops short of traversing the whole trajectory of such a flight. This happens, one suspects, owing paradoxically to her deep investment in the local and the communal, though we know that she is an avid reader of poetry from all parts of the world. It is this investment in the common and the earthy—school students and chowkidars, bus conductors, local sportspersons, the housewife, the sweetmeat shop, the petulant lovers in the locality—that keeps her grounded in the intermediate space of living. She is alive to the equity of life. But it is this same investment in the local that sometimes thwarts her from relating such wondrous everyday situations to two crucial dimensions of living itself. One: the inscape or the coutours of our inner worlds—a constant journey that happens within. The other: locating all shining objects and relationships with the cosmological and the astral. Those who are able to take cognizance of the wondrous around us have this special ability to string together a thread between the inner and the outer so that all dualism of existence evaporates. Sometimes Kumar does take a momentous leap and is able to make this vertical connection. The results are truly magical. One such poem is titled बूढ़ा और बच्चा उर्फ़ दादा और पोता(The Elderly and the Child, alias Grandfather and Grandson) Ostensibly the poem is a commentary on three generations—the elderly, the young adult and the child. But more than that, it is blessed with a remarkable realization that the elderly and the child are threaded together in a deeper relationship of wondrous existence that befuddles the adult world. The elderly reaches that state of childlike naiveté after a lifetime of journeying. विलम्ब बूढ़े लोगों का गुण है उनके भीतर स्पंदन है पर चेहरे स्थिर और विलम्बित है उनके चेहरे के सामने समाज अपने बदलाव पटकता है …बूढ़े लोग शांत चेहरों से युद्ध लड़ते है लहभग सभी विवादों और दुखों का अंत वे जानते है The elderly know the final results of all arguments and sorrows. Therefore they realize events intuitively and merely smile about such events—living in hope and curiosity about already known facts. In its his own way, the child naturally tries to sense all that is magical and true within his newly found world and finds the elderly to be the most conducive fellow traveler on that common journey. Thus, the grandfather and the grandchild form the secret, preternatural couple.