A Girl-Poet of Maharashtra

A sixteen-year-old girl can have a philosophy of her own; an artlessness of expression which might be something of an art in itself; or even a sense of humour which might be as tender and as delicious as the youth of the young writer herself.

This is the sort of impression that one gets as one spends an idle but vivid hour going through a volume of Miss Sanjivini Marathe's poems. One is told in a little biographical note that the girl's father adds to the volume, that Miss Marathe's publication of her poems is something in the manner of a doll's wedding which Indian girls are wont to celebrate in great style and giving to it something of a real wedding touch. Mr. Marathe need not have been so excessively modest. He has done on the other hand a most sensible thing that ever an Indian parent has been credited with. For in the first instance, he has given to the Marathi-reading public something of a surprise and to his own daughter no small amount of practical encouragement.

One must confess however that the idea of an Indian parent introducing his daughter to the literary world is a tremendously exciting experiment, and such an event almost smacks of New York and its literary hubble-bubble. But then the experiment ceases to be exciting when one goes through the thirty-five and odd pages of intensely thought-provoking verse and first-class verse at that. It becomes interesting to a degree.

Now to understand the poems of Miss Sanjivini Marathe, one must try to understand the ground of Miss Marathe and the processes that have led to a girl like Miss Marathe to give expression to the feelings and aspirations of an age and temperament of which Miss Marathe may be truly said to be a representative.

Readers of Triveni might remember that an attempt was made by the present writer some time ago to convey through these pages something of the spirit and the reactions of certain of Maharashtra's modern poets. This group of poets have kept alive the fire of enthusiasm, and new thought they were certainly able to provoke both in the minds of their own generation of men and women and through considerably younger people whose number has now become a legion. One great thing that men like Madhav Julian, Professor Maidev, Yeshwant, or Girish did, and one feels one ought to be more than grateful to all these fine unselfish men for the splendid service they have rendered to the Marathi language, and that was, they ushered in a new ideal and new ways in modern Marathi literature. They showed to the generation of boys and girls that what really mattered in literature was the sincerity and depth of one’s feelings and aspirations, and so long as these qualities showed themselves in their writings, no one need bother very much about the way or manner in which one's thoughts were expressed.

Such an appeal for sincerity and directness of expression has not come from the poets alone. The short story writers like Mr. Ghate, (I half suspect that even he has become somewhat of a number, considering the stupendous but all the same good output of the short story in Maharashtra) and others, played a very large part in moulding the minds of the younger writers. And last but not the least, such a thing as literary criticism has come to stay in Maharashtra, and one notes with pleasure the starting of magazines like the Prabhat (it may interest readers of Triveni to know that even here the Editor, Mr. Khanolkar, is a product of Viswa Bharati and Shantiniketan!) with its definite objective at constructive literary criticism and survey of modern Marathi literature, has played no small part in the growth and development of Marathi literature in recent years.

All that means one thing; and that is, Marathi literature is growing and is being enriched every day by writers comparatively younger and fresher in their outlook, and each one, in her or his own way, has made Marathi a very living thing, indeed. It is impossible not to feel and to be able to describe at the same time, that sense of enthusiasm, loyalty and one-ness which one often feels even from so distant a place like Simla far away from Maharashtra, and by one too who is more or less an exile from that province; but let it not be forgotten that it is often the exile who knows what he has lost by his leaving his native soil; and it is the exile too who can often appreciate or appraise the true value of things which were denied him. I am afraid I am digressing. But it must be confessed that the writers of Maharashtra have neither been fair to themselves nor to their native language. What have the writers of Maharashtra done themselves to interpret the beauties of their language, the philosophy of their saints, the music of their young poets, or the thoughts of their powerful writers, to an outside world? Indeed, barring the attempts of a few selfless missionaries like Mr. Abbot or the solitary labour of a Mahadeo Govind Ranade or the attempts of a magazine like Triveni which has so finely stood up for a synthesis in all Indian literature and in a way helped an outside public to know and to feel one with the hundred impulses that throbbed and roused the literary world of Poona and of Bombay, one fails to discover any organised attempt on the part of Maharashtra's own writers to make their efforts known to an outside world.

Witness the movement in Bengal; witness the movement in Guzerat; witness it here in North India where every day Hindi literature and its development is watched not only by the Hindi-knowing public but by others as well.

It might be argued that it is the look-out of Maharashtra and its own people. One feels that this argument is not very helpful; for one were to leave such things to the goodwill and pleasure of a somewhat indifferent people alone, one feels there is every danger of some really valuable or note-worthy writer remaining in comparative obscurity; or his or her genius languishing because no one cared to interpret him or her, to a discerning outside public.

That is then one of the reasons why the present writer of this brief resume feels he owes it to himself and to the literature he has come to love, that Miss Sanjivini Marathe's work must not remain unnoticed; that she must be introduced to a larger circle of men and women, albeit outside Maharashtra, who would like to know what a young girl in that western Indian province has to say about the many interesting things in life; its mystery; its disappointments; life's little tragedies; the beauty of a sunset; or for the matter of that, the little beggar, woman who comes of a morning begging not for alms but for sympathy.

Returning however to my previous theme, Miss Marathe then is a typical product of her age, its literary aspirations, its idealism and environments; where she scores in addition to all these assets, is in her unique possession of the most refreshing candour, an often disarming frankness and directness of appeal. Let me quote what appears to me to be an almost perfect little gem of a lyric. It is impossible not to feel the tenderness of it all and the sheer fun that Miss Marathe seems to get out of the things around her. One cannot, one regrets, bring out the whole beauty in a translation and that too in an alien tongue. But here you are: -

The poem in question relates to a young lady–I should prefer to say, a girl–who makes a wicked complaint that the world we live in is a horrid little world. Why? Miss Marathe tells us in the words of this girl:

" ’Tis a strange world, my dears, . . . a strange world . . .,
One goes a-walking in the forest,
Up comes Mr. Darkness;
Are you feeling cold, dear, he asks.
And asking, wraps you round with his mantle.
’Tis a strange world, my dears, . . . a strange world.
Comes now Mr. Wind wandering by,
And plays with my clothes . . .
’Tis a strange world, my dears, . . . a strange world,
Now comes the shameless ray of the setting sun,
Laughing, he touches me and runs away . . .
’Tis a strange world, my dears, . . . a strange world . . .
I walk on . . . and the birds gather around me:
Terrified I listen;
What songs they sing and what love they make?
’Tis a strange world, my dears, . . . a strange world.
Helpless, I meet my little friend the rill,
And she, good soul, keeps me company;
Here I come now safe from the wicked horrid world
’Tis a strange world, my dears, . . . a strange world."

That is a fairly good specimen, and one feels Miss Marathe is at her best. But one wonders if Miss Marathe can get away from this ‘horrid, wicked’ world so easily as that and in company with her friend the mountain rill. Be that as it may, the picture is almost perfect. Imagine a girl of sixteen making her debut into the great, wide and beautiful world of men and women. What must indeed be her feelings and reactions? Curiosity, one supposes, in the first instance, then the timidity, the doubts, the experiences, and the inevitable companionship that seems to me the consummation of all our human and earthly endeavour. Miss Marathe has put down what she herself probably feels and one must agree with her that her fears, her reactions, are true.

Or again hear Miss Marathe describing a maiden. Does she describe herself, one feels like asking.

"She was the child of a creeper that grew on the edge of a forest;
Each day she showed her brave array of flowers,
Proud of her youth and proud of her brave show.
Thus she became the beloved of all in that forest.
The bright sun came to her early and wished her first.
And with the laughter of her youth in her eyes did she receive him.
The wind of the oceans came to her sweetly rolling by;
And shyly she bent her neck and greeted him in return.
The King of the mountain breezes gave her the dewy pearls of a morning;
And sweetly she pleased the royal giver by wearing them of a morning;
Sometimes she listened to the music of the mountain rill;
And kept tune to the music of its flowing waters.
And then one day came the bee with the song of his love.
Softly she spoke to him and covered him with her smiles;
Shyly, shyly, from behind the pale green leaves she spoke:
‘Love, I am thine.
But cans’t thou not wait awhile?
When all that is mine, mine perfume, my fragrance, my beauty shall be thine for evermore?’
And so the bee went away hearing her; and the little sweet maiden slept.
But alas! what did the maid know of the love of the bee or its world?
Who wants but the perfume and the fragrance and not her love?
So the maid waited; and trusted in the Lord; the bee came not.
And one day she too passed away and fell to the ground faded, withered, and forlorn.
And the forest forgot her."

Listen again to Miss Marathe's conception of Dawn:

"Let not these tears come into thine eyes, beloved;
Let not these poor, sad words be spoken,
As thou beholdest my face.
Leave me, leave mine hands, beloved.
Is this the time for tears,
when you needs must be happy?
Look around thyself for once, beloved;
Hear the birds singing,
Listen to the blade of grass,
Watch the pair of birds flying,
Dance with the flowing waters.
Laugh, my beloved, laugh my little flower,
See who awaits you,
On golden steed,
And at your doors,"

This is how Miss Marathe describes a beggar woman:

"Give me a little food, oh ye, who stay within,
Give alms to misfortune's well-beloved,
Give raiment, torn though it be, to one who is lowly and poor.
They call me a flower of the dust heap:
My first gift to me was of love,
And I wandered over the world.
Men call me names,
And nought but darkness is my lot;
They give me the charity of coarse words and the bread of abuse.
Words that I swallow often with my tears . . .
Still I ask of ye who stay within. . .,
One thing. . .
Call me not within, O ye who stay up there,
And then give me the charity of coarse words.
Throw from your heights what you can give to one who is low."

All these verses have been chosen at random by the present writer. Even then they seem to show that Miss Marathe has great promise. Ideas come to her easily and her expression of her feeling and sentiment is anything but dull or unprovocative of thought.

One only hopes that this girl-poet of Maharashtra will try to keep her love for poetry in flower; and not allow it to be crushed by her somewhat prosaic surroundings and a hypercritical literary world which is the lot of many an Indian girl.¹

1Kavya Sanjivini. By Miss Sanjivini Marathe. [Publisher, G. S. Marathe, M.A., A.I.A., Actuary, Poona, No. 4, –Price One Anna.]

Mr. R. L. Rau, who write’s in Triveni, and is one of our valued contributors, will be pleased to notice books in Marathi sent to him, in these pages. Publishers and writers interested may send their publications direct to Mr. Ran, at Dahlia Cottage, Simla W. C.

Editor, ‘TRIVENI.’