A Writer's Progress

A WRITER’S PROGRESS

By ANNADA SANKAR RAY
(Translated from the Bengali Binur Boi by Lila Ray)

I. IN THE BEGINNING

Without water a plant withers and without feeling a man. Never since his birth, had Binu experienced a deficiency of the liquid element. To tell the truth there had been too much of it. Too much, like too little, kills. And Binu would have died not his life been saved by the Person who, off-stage Himself, provides the rain. Excess water is drained away by cutting channels. Music, poetry, drama and the dance, sculpture, painting and the other arts are practised that feeling may find outlet. To Binu was given the knowledge of what to say to whom in order to afford a passage for the excess of his sensibility.

But twenty years of his life were to pass in the efforts to decipher his fate. It is only in the mirroring eyes of another that we can read what we are destined to be. That other may be dearer than oneself. So it was in the stars of another’s eyes that Binu one day discovered what he was to become. He could no longer doubt then that he was a poet. Up to that time it had been doubtful, and because it was doubtful his early poems had not revealed him to himself. They had been a make-believe, a dressing-up, not the real Binu.

Nevertheless these first twenty years constituted his period of training; the exertions he made were equivalent to his stage of struggle. Partly as in a dream, partly unknown to himself, partly in imitation of others and partly through bad (or good!) company he made some progress. He was helped even by his mistakes. At times these appeared less errors of sense than practical wisdom.

The end of all effort is effortlessness, moksha. Binu’s efforts were directed to the release of the waters of his sensibility; his ultimate goal was their free and unimpeded flow. When would he achieve it? How was he to know that he would ever be able to do so? His allotted task was to make the attempt and towards its accomplishment he had to work his way. Later in life he again doubted and ran after will-o-the-wisps, but he never took a wrong turning. Every time he came safely to the highway of his destiny.

II. CHILDHOOD

Binu had an advantage over other boys of his age. So much was forgiven him! At night other boys had to memorise their lessons but Binu read the Chandi of Kavikankan to his grandmother or went out with parties of kirtan singers. Other boys had to be present in class every day but Binu was permitted to go into the common room during class time. There he could sit and turn over the pages of magazines or browse in the library. At home he had a library of his own, the gift of his father. Nobody ever disturbed him when he was reading. Only his mother, whenever she saw a book of any kind in his hand, would begin to scold, “O! Those novels again!” His father said nothing. But Binu did not give him occasion to, for he was afraid of his father and he was careful not to read novels in front of him. Newspapers and magazines were the only things he dared to read openly. Through these he acquired a taste for literature. Binu wished to write himself and to run a manuscript magazine, but he lacked the requisite ability. Almost all the pieces that appeared in his magazine were imitations. His apprenticeship began with imitation. Binu was not the boy to enjoy such work. There were many other things to be enthusiastic about.

As we have seen, his liking for literature began with the reading of newspapers and magazines. There was also another opening, the Raja’s theatre. His father was the manager of the theatre. Why a person of such a grave disposition should have been made the theatre manager was a mystery. Perhaps it was because he knew how to manage. Performances started on time ended on time and there were light refreshments afterwards. Binu’s father was not the person to put up with any sort of disorderliness. And he was a man of feeling though he kept his feelings to himself. No occasion quite came off unless he was present, whether it was a game of dice or a kirtan concert. He could not sing and acted very rarely. Dramatic performances took place once or twice a month. Binu went. When he saw plays being acted he felt like writing them himself and he wanted his acted too. The boys of his own age did him the honour of staging some of his worthless productions but they refused to give him an important role!

III. URGE

Binu gradually lost his enthusiasm. That is to say it found other objects. This narrative of ours is not a biography of Binu; very little of his life will be in it. The change in the his enthusiasm is irrelevant.

Binu’s monthly magazine came to a stop and his home theatre as well. There was no encouragement to go on with them from any direction, inner or outer. Unless some compelling need behind an idea spurs it on to achievement, it soon peters out even though no one can create without an idea. The need is the creator’s or his audience’s; sometimes it is felt by both. The one who feels the need urges creation. Only then does the sap of life flow freely from a pen, only then does the honey of emotion pour into the sound a flute or passion take shape in the colours of a brush.

There was no encouragement fromoutside nor was there likely to be. Who wanted the compositions of a boy eleven or twelve years old except his playmates? And his playmates had many interests of their own in addition to their studies. Those who used to contribute to Binu’s magazine forgot to do so. Setting out to fill it entirely by himself Binu discovered it was wasted labour, for no one read it. As for the theatre–the home theatre–he found that the actors said whatever they liked, got up again after they had been overthrown and slain, fought another round and were applauded. Nobody cared for the dramatist. It was an honour to seven generations of his ancestors that his play was being performed at all! What pleasure was there in writing, plays!

A still greater consideration was that he felt no urge from within either. The flame of a fancy soon burns itself out. To keep it alight throughout the night, outside incitement is not enough; there must also be an inner burning. Binu felt no wild eagerness to write at all costs. The reason may have been that his heart was not full to overflowing at that age. Emotion accumulates, rising to flood level slowly. Internal pressure then forces a lightening of the burden. One suffers unless his feelings are relieved at such a time. If he has a pen he has to write and he will write even if he is obstructed and forbidden to do so.

IV. TECHNIQUE

He will write; until he has written he knows no rest. Yet writing will bring him no relief unless he knows how to write. The technique must be learned. This is a matter not of a day but of a lifetime. The contortions of a person who has not learned how to write are painful to behold.

It took Binu twenty years to learn this, though he had dimly guessed it through reading the works of others at the age of twelve or thirteen. When he discovered the Sabuj Patra he decided that if one wrote at all one should write like Birbal.

In was in the Sabuj Patra that he found the word art. He could not forget it. Though he himself was not very keen on writing he was interested in knowing what sort of writing is art, what writing that is not art lacks, and which books are or are not art. He began to examine carefully the magazines he had been in the habit of swallowing whole. It no longer seemed so easy to gulp down novels and plays indiscriminately. They stuck in his throat when he tried.

Binu was not among the boys who stood first or second in class. He could not be called clever. He was unknown. Those who cared for him cared not because he was clever or gifted but just because he was Binu. Such was the boy whom the group of writers associated with the Sabuj Patra educated. Rabindranath was among them and so was Satyendranath.

To them cleverness meant skilful living, not mere facility in the handling of words. For Rabindranath or Prarnatha Chaudhuri a talent far writing meant a talent for living. Their eyes were skilful, their ears were trained, their taste was expert. Their minds were discerning. There is a certain kind of mind, the bidagdha mind, a mind from which its grosser parts have been fired away, in which there is no foreign matter unconsumed, in whhich there is no obstruction. A person who does not have such a mind may write with facility and brilliance but he will convey only a suggestion of passion, not passion itself. That does not satisfy the spirit; at the most it can startle. The excellence of Home and the World, or The Tales of Four Friends is not lip-deep; it is the flashing of a lightning that burns. The excellence of The Cloud Messenger is of the same kind. An interest in the classics was aroused in Binu. But the cast of his mind was romantic.

V. SIMPLICITY

This does not apply to a certain kind of poet. How can a poet who is illiterate learn to write? He composes his songs orally like women make up nursery rhymes. Line rhymes with line and the metre does not break down only because his ear is alert. His poetry is liked not for its skilfulness but for its innate sweetness. This sweetness flowing fresh from its source, the heart, is caught and held in the poet’s work; it does not wait upon technique.

Binu’s surprise was boundless when, as a child, he first tasted Vaishnava poetry. He did not believe that Chandidas was either very skilful or had a bidagdha mind; nor was he particularly clever. Yet his poems spoke the language of the heart to the heart. Tears started to his eyes, tears that shone also in the eyes of the poet. Is it an easy thing to awaken such sympathy with suffering? Yet Chandidas was what is called a Sahaj or simple poet. There are no traces of effort anywhere in the language ofhis poems.

At that time Binu was unable to solve this mystery. Later he did. When feeling is very deep it cuts its own channel, without taking the help of the mind. The mind can make alterations here and there, polishing up a little, poetry written in the heart’s blood. Otherwise it is related to it only distantly. In such cases intellectual cleverness is an affliction and an aspirant is afraid of it. He desires to be completely simple, direct, unadorned, to forget all conceits. He wishes to do away with every trace of ostentation, to conceal his virtuosity. This is another kind of refinement, a burning away of the grosser parts of the heart instead of the mind. It results not from the charring of one’s world but from the conflagration of love.

“Most difficult is the art whole melody is the simplest,” said Rabindranath. He knew and described this kind of writing. Gitanjali bears witness. He may have begun to strive for it in Kheya. As a boy Binu had liked the selections from Kheya best when he read Chayannika. Subsequently the poet’s earlier poetry also moved him, Manoshi, Shonar Tori, Chitra, but the Rabindranath of his first acquaintance was a simple poet. Binu loved the sweet pensiveness of his music. It is akin, not to the Vaishnavas, but to the Bauls. Westerners were not mistaken in calling him a mystic. Those who tell us of the highest truth with the utmost simplicity are mystics.

VI. NEWSPAPER REPORTING

Through his grandfather Binu became addicted to tea-drinking and through his father to the reading of newspapers. When he grew a little older and became able to read English he felt the desire to turn his addiction into his livelihood, not in his own country but in the world at large, chiefly America, and of course in the English language. The examples ofSudhindra Bose and St. Nihal Singh beckoned to him. For a time he lost sight of literature.

There was a certain restlessness in Binu’s nature. He could notsit quietly anywhere. He would get up and go out without a reason. Travelling at home and abroad was a passion from childhood and from his earliest years he was partial to America above all foreign countries. His father once remarked that when he grew up he would be the George Washington of his country. A book on the American War of Independence fell into his hands. He liked Jefferson as much as Washington and he liked the later Lincoln too. America is the Playground of freedom; everyone is equal there; no distinction is made between East and West; all who go to America prosper. In magazines he read the testimony of Indians who had gone to America and he began to count the days until he should grow up and cross the oceans as an ordinary seaman. He planned to work in a newspaper office after reaching America.

The desire to study in college either at home or abroad had not been awakened in him by his father, nor had the idea occurred to him of itself. His father had been obliged to leave school without finishing his education and join the struggle for a living. He believed that the education given us by real life is a more useful one, than that obtainable in a school or a college. How many come out of school and college real men? Most of them are slaves! He cursed all work for wages because he had to take a job himself. He wanted his son to be a man among men, not just a good employee. He was of an extremely independent turn of mind and had once resigned his post. At the age of eighteen he had been compelled to take a job out of consideration for his parents and brothers and sisters. He did not want Binu to have to do the same.

VII. THE PLAYGROUND

In one of Wodsworth’s sonnets he describes the mountains and the sea as the playground of freedom. Binu was born amidst hills. The hills were not large but the child was smaller. In his infancy their tops seemed to touch the sky. From the of one an outstretched hand might have reached heaven. Was there anything beyond them? Perhaps not. His word came to an end on their slopes.

Day after day, morning, noon and evening Binu saw the hills and he saw them at night, if he were awake, at midnight. They could be seen from the house. He did not need to take any trouble to look for them. If he wanted to look at the sunrise or the sunset he could not do so without seeing the hills. The first clouds of Ashar hung out their banners on the hills. After a rainstorm the curtain would slowly rise, disclosing the hills enthroned in the centre of the stage.

After fourteen or fifteen years of the company of these playmates Binu knew the value of freedom. How could he explain the process by which he had learned it! But the question of sacrificing his freedom grew urgent whenever he thought with longing of anything which might demand it as its price. Such longings came to him and they did not diminish the value of his freedom. On the other hand he became more than ever aware of how precious it was to him. Binu’s freedom was as dear to him as her only garment was to the woman who gave that garment to the Lord Buddha.

He first saw the sea when he was fourteen or fifteen years old. Arriving at Puri in the evening the first thing he did was to setout to greet the ocean.. Through the darkness he heard the surge of it, though he could not see it, and felt its cool salty breath upon him. He had never before been so strongly attracted by anything. The sea intoxicated him. Arrangements were made for him to go to school at Puri. Day after day and night after night passed beside the sea. His acquaintance with it became intimate. It was now an old friend. During college vacations the sea summoned him to Puri. After he sailed upon it. The blue of the sea set the seal of freedom upon his life.

VIII. THE TEMPLE

The life of the place where Binu was born revolved around the temple. The old temple-centred civilisation of India has not yet disappeared from the ‘Native States’, that is, it had not at that time. Binu’s mother and grandmother frequently repaired to the temple and Binu went along. The enclosure of the temple was as spacious as the building was large. Bowing down to the floor beforethe idol was not the only thing that Binu did; sitting apart in a secluded spot he discovered that Something which is the core of all religions. He was reluctant to come home and came only because he had to. This meditation of his was a sort of escape, not an escape from the world, but an escape into the heart of it. Binu was an inhabitant of the infinite, eternal immense cosmos. The world ignored that and often made him forget it. When he visited the temple he remembered. He did not bother his head about pious merit. What wrong had he done that he should grovel in the temple to deserve better?

Religion as such interested him. He went to church with his uncle and joined in the prayers. Although he did not attend services in a mosque he and his brother were often sent to participate in the lathi play which is a feature of the Moharrum festival, for his grandmother had vowed to a god that they would go. The sinni of Satya Pir used to be brought to the house and the name of the person who brought it was Bokhari Saheb. Binu and his family had great respect for him. Binu went to the length of fasting on the eleventh day of the waxing month. He suffered no inconvenience at all, however, for his compassionate mother stuffed him with fruit the whole day. And he used to join processions of kirtan singers, dancing with raised arms, though he did it more out of greed for the sweetmeats that were distributed afterwards than from piety.
His religions researches gradually led him to a belief in the creed of the Bramos. He lost his faith in idolatry for good. When he visited the temple it was in search of beauty or to take part in some festival. A great deal of our civilisation which is distinct from religion also centres in the temple. To eliminate the temple is to eliminate tradition. Binu was not prepared to do that then or now.

IX. MYSTERIOUS WOMAN

In speaking of the temple much more is implied than the worship of an idol. The whole town gathered there and women moved about freely, women of all classes and kinds. Binu matured rather early. And why should he not? Negotiations for his marriage had been in progress since he was six months old! If he had married all the girls proposed he would have had a vast harem. His grandmother used to promise the hand of her grandson to every girl who took her fancy. Poor Binu was discouraged with waiting. When he asked why no wife came for him he was told one would come when he grew up. What could he do about growing up? Binu gave up hope of marriage and contented himself with seeing. Those upon whom he gazed when he went to the temple were not goddesses but the daughters of men. For Binu their attraction was greater than that of the divinities. It has to be admitted that he noticed older girls most. For they are not girls, they are women! Mysterious woman!

In our ancient civilisation men and women met and made each other’s acquaintance chiefly at religious fairs and in temples. Binu saw those who are not generally to be seen, at the Car Festival, on the Night of Siva, at the Festival of the Full Moon of Spring, at the Festival of the Swing, at the ceremonial bathing on the dawn of the Ras Moon, at the Varuni Yog–Binu’was born on Varuni day. The custom of seclusion was not as slack as it is today. Women were permitted to visit and forth among a few well-known families but these families belonged to the same gotra or clan. Men would have been entirely deprived of feminine beauty by this custom if it had not been for temple services, ceremonials and religious fairs. Bottled up in a dark container the variegated lovliness of women would have been invisible.

On the day of the Car Festival groups of women dressed in their best would stop at Binu’s house on their way in from the villages. They chatted with the women of the house, asked for water, set up permanent bonds of kinship and departed. At night women gathered near the Car. Binu would be there also with his mother and grandmother. His reverence for the deity was genuine but the attraction of the daughters of men was irresistible. He had not yet become conscious of his body but he was conscious of beauty, of charm, of good dressing, of mystery.

X. KITH AND KIN

The arbitrary setting up of bonds of kinship is perhaps peculiar to India. One fine day a person you have never known turns up and introduces himself as your uncle! Your mother, it seems used to call his wife her sister. Or perhaps somebody introduces himself as your brother or herself as your mother-in-law.

These were common occurrences in Binu’s life. Village women visited their house not only on the day of the Car Festival, they came and went all the year around. Once a year a party of snake charmers came. They had great respect for Binu’s grandfather because he knew the mantra for snakes. He had many curious bits of knowledge, medicines and odds and ends of various kinds. No one knew better how to treat cows and calves. The snake charmers used to give him the jarmahura and the snake jewel. They were relatives of Binu. One of them called him his Dada, elder brother.

Many of the local shopkeepers were uncles. One of them presented Binu with a small pair of cymbals. They were his favourite musical instrument. In this way Binu was connected with all and sundry, often without his knowledge. His grandmother was most forward in making these alliances. She had innumerable relatives-in-law. Curiously they belonged to all  castes; no one was excluded, not the washerman, the dairy-maid, the seller of popcorn balls, the girl sweeper or the girl gardener. His grandmother, though old-fashioned, was surprisingly liberal. In her stock of stories she had the Hindu Ramayana and Mahabharata, the Muslim Golebakaoli, two or three Christian tales, and fairy stories from all lands. That was why there were Muslims and Christians among the children she made her kindred. Binu’s mother had a horror of pollution, so they did not frequent the house but Binu often went to visit them. He would go to the Pathan schoolmaster’s wife when he wanted to eat chicken’s eggs. She was an aunt. Halwa he used to get at the house of a Muslim official who was a brother-in-law. Binu’s mother, though she did not like overdoing things, also had numerous brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers. Binu used to go to see them. They belonged to all castes. In this way Binu gradually came to disbelieve in caste differences.

(To be continued)