In Defense of the ‘Decadents’
Samar Sen Certain critics point out with a sneer that ‘Progress’ is a Victorian word. Perhaps they are right: the Victorian belief in progress was based upon security and a rising level of production. Forebodings and uneasy apprehensions shadowed the late-Victorian period, because it was an age of finance unlike the early Victorian age of production. The relation between production and distribution is far less apparent in our age of finance, hence the sense of frustration marking the closing years of the last century. To the sceptical critics of progress it may be pointed out that though the present century has widened the gap between productive forces and social relations and to a certain extent justifies their enlightened scepticism, the latest powers of world production still permits a rational belief in progress. We find that production power of man has still immense possibilities. So we are still for progress. It is not desirable in our day to reaffirm the medieval conception of human life, to declare that man’s fate is inevitably tragic and all notions of progress an illusion. To assert this under the painful pressure of circumstances is a subterfuge, a means to shrink responsibility. It is rather easy to talk about our belief in progress with reference to past history. But the moment we come to consider the present, do define the meaning of the progressive movement in literature, we seem to be a melting pot, and confused voices of lamentation, denunciation and warning strike the ear. The modern Bengali poet is between two fires. If he tries to be honest with regard to the vices of his own class and voices his sense of decay, he falls under, and is found guilty of the charges of obscenity and obscurity. The eternal principles of art, he is told, are beauty and truth, truth and beauty, to deny which is bad taste, a perversion. On the other hand he is told from the progressive quarter, which emphasizes his defeatism and obscurity, that he is a decadent and damned petty-bourgeois. The damning is thus complete. He then thinks of perhaps a dozen or so of his admirers and continues to use a medium of expression whose beauties commend themselves only to the dozen or so, with confusing results both for the moralist and the progressive critic. A gentleman, sceptical of the progressive demands on poetry, when politely told that he was a decadent bourgeois, retorted: “You can call me a swine if you like, but I am what I am.” It is certainly time to clear up a host of misunderstandings. A really progressive critic will be a great force today. But a certain notion is gaining ground, fanned by some of the progressives and by the newspapers which have their own sentimental ideas about literature, that to be progressive means to write about mazdoors and kisans in a broad sentimental vein, to depict all the glories of a possible proletarian revolution and to do all these in a way which would be understood by the man in the street. A way with defeatism and all bourgeois subtleties of expression! Nothing is more important than direct propaganda. It may be that the results will be slightly disappointing for some time, but all will be well in the future society. The progressive who proceeds in this manner is not an objective critic. He is a sentimental humanist. We must not forget in our new-born enthusiasm for the cause that literature has a tradition of its own and that there are many invisible gaps between the economic and the cultural superstructure. If we consider the changes effected in Bengali poetry in the last fifteen years we must admit that it has definitely ‘progressed.’ The best of it has almost got clear of that sickening vice bequeathed by the Tagorean tradition—sentimentalism. It has improved and made considerable changes in technique. From a loose and ineffective language to a highly polished and flexible one, from a mere turning loose of emotion to a consciousness of the disruptive forces threatening society, —there are considerable achievements. To sacrifice all these in order to widen the appeal and rouse the people by direct propaganda will be dangerous sacrifice. It will mean a swim backward in literary tradition and will revive the sentimental age in a changed garb. Such demands on poetry, backed by the newspapers and the progressives, will have dangerous consequences for the rising generation, which has every chance of being taken in by these easy methods of cheap and quick popularity. The critic who asks for such a literary change in the name of progress, we repeat, is at best a sentimental humanist. What can be achieved if, in the immediate present, the Bengali poet tries to widen his appeal? Mass-appeal is indeed a tremendous thing. It can at least help fill up, the empty pockets of the unfortunate writers. But how do the masses come in? The vast majority of them is illiterate. The reading section consists entirely of the middle-classes. To appeal to them is to pander to the tastes of a demoralized class, to turn poetry into simple wish-fulfillment. Consider the plight of the Indian film industry and the Radio, both of which are middle-class and popular. If the middle class had any vitality left it would have at least created somethings significant during and after the Civil Disobedience Movement. But nothing of that kind happened, because at this late hour in history the colonial bourgeoisie has no life at all. With huge and vital sections of our population illiterate and dim in the background, we cannot really hope to effect a revolution with our writings. That would be putting the cart before the horse. We can at present only soliloquise, we cannot address the real audience. To be really progressive in our time and in our country,where only a fraction is literate, is to preserve the integrity of what is good in our past tradition, to be true to oneself
Hopeful About Hopelessness: Gyanranjan Ke Bahane
Neelabh [This is an excerpt from Gyanranjan ke Bahane, where the writer gives us a unique sense of the Hindi literary world from the 1960s till date, by way of tracing it through the story of his friendship with Gyanranjan, writer and editor of the watershed literary magazine Pahal. Translation HUG.] As I have said, between Gyan and me, things were getting into a rhythm of sorts. But in this new chapter, our relationship would be more of a roller coaster ride, with its fair share of ups and downs. Once Gyanranjan got into the business of editing Aadhar, the pace and style of his own writings began to suffer. No one would really consider him to be a prolific writer, but at least there used to be regularity in his pen earlier. After 1970, there developed a kind of sluggishness in that evenness of output. The half-formed, halting tale which Gyan would narrate to us at leisure actually saw the light of the day as ‘Anubhav’, which got published in 1972. After that bit of writing Gyan had not written any short story. Perhaps a variation of that idea one might be able to detect in ‘Bahirgaman,’ which Ashok Vajpeyi had included in his Pehchan series. Since no edition of Pehchan had taken the responsibility of providing us with the publishing details, nor was there any bit of information about the date and year of the individual editions themselves, it is impossible to tell at this point which version of the story came out first. But yes, his story ‘Ghanta’ appeared in ‘Katha’ in 1968 and after that Gyan had written two other short stories. Of course, post-‘Anubhav’, Gyan had published a couple of sections from his proposed novel, but that too remained incomplete. Later, once his journey with Pahal began, and the way he got involved in that project, it was impossible to come back and write creative stuff systematically. Most certainly, an opportunity lost. We, I mean Dudhnath Singh and I, have often tried to ponder over this: why had Gyan stopped writing? I mean, what could be the reasons? Over a period of time I have come to my own personal conclusions about this matter. Gyan’s writings and concerns, having begun during the Nehrvian era and having felt the full impact of the illusory aspect of that era, had arrived at a new juncture. One of the first signs of a generation’s disillusionment with the Nehruvian era was possibly Amarkant’s—a man of the previous era—story ‘Hatyara’, published in Nayi Kahaniya. The disenchantment with Nehru’s time and ways had provided Hindi literature with some pregnant possibilities. The likes of Shrikant Verma, who gave us poems like ‘Bhatka Megh’, were rattling their twin-bladed sabres of distrust and rage. The fervour of Janwadi movements and much of the earlier streams of the left had already ebbed from the cultural scene. In these circumstances, the restless, self-centred ethos of Nayi Kavita was being demolished by the seething fumes of the directionless and anarchic poetry-movements like Akavita, which gobbled up even some old-timers and seasoned left activists. During these times, if we behold the stories of Dudhnath Singh, Gyanranjan, Kashinath Singh and Ravindra Kalia collectively, one would clearly notice signs of nihilism and negativity—a spiralling nakarvaad was in the air. Ravindra Kalia and Kashinath Singh were fully draped in the ominous chaddar of negativity—quite distinctly apparent if one reads Ravi’s ‘5055’ or Kashinath’s ‘Apne Log.’ But Dudhnath and Gyan, if you allow me a popular adage, were hopeful about hopelessness—astha ke saath anasthavadi. Dudhnath nurtured his own brand of negativity, which was nature’s gift—one that we can make out right from ‘Vistaar’ (published in Sarika), meandering past ‘Sukhant’ and ‘Dharmashetra Kurushetra’ and leading up to ‘Namo Andhakaram’ and ‘Nishkasan’. The difference was only this that while in his first phase of writing, the impulse of negativity was channelled through and coloured in the motifs of self-destructiveness and melancholy, gradually the same bent changed and got engaged into viciously tearing down others, along with paying repeated obeisance to self-centredness and self-glorification. In Gyan’s kind of negativity, on the other hand, since it had emerged from real social unrest and turmoil, the public-social nature was always at hand, in attendance. Even the beatnik wave could not deter him from his chosen path, though it did influence him a lot. ‘Amrud ka Pedh’, ‘Shesh Hote Huye’ and “Fence ke Idhar aur Udhar’—all bear testimony to how he had tirelessly exposed and torn apart middle class vacuity and other loose sensibilities. It is strange that recently, as I again sat reading his 1972 ‘Anubhav’, I felt that an unsuccessful story of his time was so prescient with truth of a different order. It was ahead of its time actually. I also felt rather wistful and wondered whether things would have been different if Gyan had tolerated a wee bit more the very structurelessness of his stories and wandered a tad more in the by-lanes of his thought world. Had he given such stories some more time to mature in his mind and had he nurtured them further with his developing experience, his work may have exhibited altogether different contours. But Gyan was of a different mettle—living life and literature on a knife’s edge. Maybe the terrain of his writings was middle class existence; but the way he would undo and lay bare each of its layers by his unique style and turns of phrase: that was his and his alone. And when one continues to exhaust all of one’s linguistic munitions with such energy in each and every bit of writing, at one point one may find the arsenal exhausted, empty. That is what transpired I suspect. Perhaps Gyan had lacked the patience and endurance to dismantle and recast his own mould afresh, the way Nirala, Sarveshwar and Raghuvir Sahay had done. Gyan’s art had gradually developed into a fortress and then into a prison-house of its own. There was yet another reason.
Robert Southey: Two Letters, Monthly Magazine
Robert Southey Letter I: Editor of the Monthly Magazine, 2 September 1796 Sir, In your Magazine for June, a Correspondent, who signs himself M.H. [1] has defended the system of Helvetius, [2] and asserted that “nothing can be more monstrous and hypothetical, than the notion of a child (whose mind having received no impression, is a total blank, without a single idea) being born with a power of discrimination, a correct judgment, &c.” [3] The philosophy of Helvetius has become very fashionable in England. I, however, believe, that all arguments deduced from experience and analogy, are directly in opposition to it. Two individuals — say the advocates of this system, would be precisely similar, if they received precisely the same education; that is, if they should be precisely in the same situations, and the same circumstances; now this can never take place. Thus, they assert what they themselves acknowledge never can be proved. Materialists and Immaterialists are agreed, that the brain is the organ of thought; we have no business now with the enquiry what it is that thinks — a point which never can be proved, and of which the proof, if possible, would be useless. The brain, however, is the organ of thought, as the eye is the organ of vision; the point, then on which this system rests, is, that the organization of the brain is in all men equally perfect, excepting in absolute idiots and madmen. But is there no gradation from the man of strong and sound intellect, down to the idiot? Has your correspondent never known persons, who, though not in a state of absolute idiotism, are yet little removed from it? Who shall draw the line where theseremoves end? As there are gradations below the standard of common sense, may we not reasonably infer that there are gradations ascending above it? The opponents of Helvetius believe in innate aptitudes — not innate ideas. In the same manner as the organ of sight is formed with different degrees of strength in different persons, they assert a difference of perfection in the organ of thought. I have known a child catch a tune before he could articulate a sentence, though his brother never discovered the least inclination for music. Now the education of their ears, had been precisely the same; for their mother had sung the same songs to both in their infancy. The instance of the Jesuits, which Helvetius adduces, may be applied against his system: it is a well known fact, that their preceptors watched with the utmost attention the disposition of their pupils. One of them was believed incapable of attaining any kind of knowledge, till his tutor tried him in geometry, and he became a celebrated mathematician. Is the brain always exactly of the same size and shape? Are the ventricles always exactly of the same size? Is the medullary substance always exactly of the same consistence — so that the vibrations may always be propagated with equal swiftness? These questions must all be decided in the affirmative, before it can be proved that all men are equally possessed of intellectual powers. S. R. September 2, 1796. Notes * MS: MS has not survived Previously published: Monthly Magazine, 2 (September 1796), 629 [from where the text is taken] under pseudonym ‘S.R.’. For attribution to Southey, see Kenneth Curry, ‘Southey’s contributions to The Monthly Magazine and The Athenaeum’, The Wordsworth Circle, 11 (1980), 215. [1] Mary Hays (1759–1843; DNB). [2] Claude Adrien Helvétius (1715–1771), French materialist philosopher and encyclopaedist. His De L’Esprit (1758) asserted that the human mind was a blank at birth. [3] Monthly Magazine, 1 (June 1796), 385–387. ————————————————– Letter 2: Editor of the Monthly Magazine, 3 September 1796 Sir, If Mr. Coleridge had ever made a pilgrimage to the birth-place of Chatterton, [1] he would never have inserted these lines in his beautiful Monody [2] — the only one that has yet done honour to the subject: “Thy native cot she flash’d upon thy view, “Thy native cot, where still at close of day “PEACE smiling sat — and listened to thy lay.” The street is as close and filthy as any in St. Giles’s: there is a charity-school there, and Mrs. Chatterton herself taught children to read and sew. When such is the place and such the inhabitants, we cannot easily conceive PEACE sitting in Pile-street. In his dress, Chatterton had none of the carelessness by which genius is so often so dirtily distinguished. At that period laced cloaths were worn, and he was fond of appearing in a showy suit. It is strange that men of genius should so frequently wish to render themselves singular by their appearance, either by becoming slovens, or, like Chatterton and Gray, [3] by affecting the opposite extreme. The field has been so often and so completely gleaned, that no new anecdotes of this strange young man can now be expected. A complete edition of whatever he left, either under his own name or that of Rowley, is still to be desired. His unpublished pieces are in the hands of Mr. CATCOTT, [4] of Bristol, on whom Chatterton has reflected a celebrity which he would otherwise have sought in vain, either* [5] under ground or on the top of a church-steeple. Some of these should be preserved. To publish them without submitting them to the pruning knife would be to injure the reputation of the author and to insult the decency of the reader. Some beautiful poems, (not contained in the editions of Rowley,) are in Mr. BARRET’S History of Bristol; [6] and they appear amid that dull compilation, like a few stars in a dark night. These pieces, with the published poems of Chatterton, and his contributions to the magazine of the day, if collected into a volume with his life, would form an acceptable present to the public. [7] Subscriptions have been proposed for erecting him a monument; surely this would be the noblest? B. Bristol, Sept. 3. Notes * MS: MS has not survived Previously published: Monthly Magazine, 2 (September 1796), 614 [from where the text is taken] under the pseudonym ‘B.’. For conjectural attribution to Southey, see Kenneth Curry, ‘Southey’s contributions to The Monthly Magazine and The Athenaeum’, The Wordsworth Circle, 11 (1980), 215. [1] Thomas Chatterton (1752–1770; DNB). [2] Samuel Taylor
No Salutes To Modernity: Moushumi Bhowmik, Her Intimate Cosmos
Majhi (click here for the song) [HUG listens to singer, songwriter Moushumi Bhowmik] Prasanta: Moushumi, it is difficult to say why I am here. Long ago I was thinking about your song Daya Karo—and it was not just about one song that I was thinking, but a particular mode of singing, song writing, carrying oneself that had attracted me, like many who connect with your music, I am sure. So, it is difficult to say what I am looking for. May be to know a bit more about your music which is very tentative and yet very seriously certain about many things—a strange, untimely combination of minimalism and conviction. I think it is about this mode of existence that I want to know more— how this mode is played out in your music, how it may have evolved (and still evolving, I’d think?) and your connections and disjunctions with your surroundings, within the context of a changing India from the late eighties to the present time. But instead of rambling on, let me direct myself slightly, a little bit, purely for the sake of structuring things and not for streamlining your thought process. One can start with language of course, the very idea of the vernacular modern—in your case working with Bangla language in the lyric form. As a lay listener, it seems to me that language has changed in the last 30 odd years quite startlingly, say Chandril Bhattacharya’s evolution from a talented JAM/skit performer in college fests to writing astute, witty songs and then turning into a deeply anti-intellectual , best- selling prose writer in the popular domain is a case in point. Of course, I am talking about the popular cultural scene here and not esoteric writing which is, and will continue to remain, abundant and deeply experimental in the language. But in such a context will it sound conservative and alarmist to say that the vernacular modern is disappearing in this melee of accessibility, particularly in music? Moushumi: Yes, it could sound conservative, coming from a certain vantage point. See, space is a strange thing. I mean social space. There is a large space where I do not belong; I am not relevant. But there is a small space—and I do not mean local, provincial space, but some niche where I am utterly relevant. Kids—for instance, make a constituency for my songs, and not just Bengali kids too. That is a small space, but we connect. Right from 1994 when I had cut my first album, people did notice my style of writing songs, my ideas, ideologies, emotions—all that constantly informs my music. In fact, even earlier. If you ask other writers and singers and poets—many of them do form communities of sorts of their own—there is a mutual give and take. So, relevance and irrelevance in a changing India is a complicated thing. It is not a story of crisis. Wide audience? No. Audience? Certainly. To be honest, and I am saying this from no elevated height, much of the music that happens in Kolkata actually escapes my notice. Frankly, I do not know. There is this anxiety to be part of a constant visibility—and that is legitimate for someone who wants to make music her career— this actually escapes me. I can afford that, because of my comfortable growing up, my privileged education and I realize that fully. But that has happened. You know, there is this Tara TV breakfast show called Aaj Shokaler Amontrone. They had invited me and I went to their studio for a live interactive program. It was a good program but you will not believe how many people actually commented on my appearance. I mean, why I was unkempt. It was morning and you dress in a certain way—what comes naturally. You have just woken up and that is the natural condition. Your voice has also woken up. That is its natural condition too. I did not even think about it. But that became an issue! The styling, in a certain way. People expect you to look all made-up on a TV show. I had heard this actually—way earlier—during my first recording with HMV—Babul Rehman of HMV had made similar observations about my appearance. This is not unusual, I realize. There is this obverse reaction too—see how Moushumi has continued to remain plain and grounded—again a judgement around my appearance—within the rules of the game, this too. I see both ends. Yes, Chandril. Such a sharp writer. So smart. Some of his early lyrics used to make me smile. But I prefer singing sitting down—on a chair, may be? There are performances and performances, isn’t it? I have always thought that the audience must be included, not blinded with wit. Staccato wit. If there is a single most critical-political responsibility of the singer—then that I feel is to reject arrogance and aggression in performing and recording. May be one can avoid acting like a messiah or distributing nuggets of wisdom or try bedazzling the audience. So, coming back to your question about the vernacular modern—I have tried to work with language without stunning my small audience. The words and phrases I use are freely available; I merely craft them without much fanfare in a manner suitable for a particular song. I am also perhaps not capable of writing quick-witted songs. To be topical is not my thing. I realize my limitations. Prasanta: We can hardly avoid styling though, even the one who is most oblivious to it, isn’t it? Austerity is a conscious decision to carry oneself in a particular manner, not in any glib sense, but one does present to oneself and to the world a certain way of living—though that might not be always relevant to one’s work? Moushumi: O yes, I realize that I have styled myself consciously. I am not for a moment saying that I have no presence or no sense of presentation. My styling suffuses a kind of aesthetic probably. See, the way