The love of the great is a sand bank 

Kazi Nazrul Islam

Translated by: Shaheen Daad

I was then a political prisoner, held up in Alipur Central Jail. Feeling injustice, feeling that the mother was devouring her own child, I snapped one day and called the mother a witch… 

In the meantime the Assistant Jailer came around and broke to me sensational news. “What’s this, mister,” he cracked. “The Nobel Prize in yours for sure. Rabi Thakur has just dedicated his ‘Basanta’ drama publication to you.” 

Beside me at the time there were two other literature-prone political prisoners. They laughed even louder than I did. We were not laughing with glee, only laughing at something ridiculous.  

But that ridiculous something became true. Vishwakavi, the universal poet, really did smear my forehead with the tilak of ill omen.  

It was a mark of ill omen without a doubt. For, from that point on, even the most intimate of my jail companions turned away from me. Those who were prone to extol a work of mine ten times over now began to disparage the same fifteen times over. That which would have been a blessing became a curse for me.  

I began to perceive a surging Sindhu of jealousy emanating from within the prison complex itself. I couldn’t believe what I heard. Especially when I heard a certain poet friend, whom I had always respected and treated as my senior, leading this demonic chorus. We both knew very well to what extend he held me in his affection, and indeed the whole country knew, because it shines through his celebrated prose and poetry, the manner in which he extols me and my work.  

Those who make wild song and dance about their pursuit of truth and beauty, even these noble seekers are overcome by petty jealousy. To witness such ugliness I sink into a fathomless depression.  

Listening to that piece of news the tears in my eyes dried up there and then. I realized that a material gain for me was at the same time a devastating loss within the soul. I cried within and exclaimed, “Alas Gurudev! Why did you bring on me this awesome damage?” … 

I do not only respect Vishwakavi, I have always worshipped him with body and soul, the same way the idolater worships his beloved idol.  When I was much younger I used to stand reverent before his picture with the full accompaniment of flowers, incense and sandalwood paste. I have suffered many a taunt because of this.  

In fact the excess of my reverence has found a permanent mark on the crown of a certain Rabindranath-hater. The burden of judging my reverence fell on the state justice apparatus and its religion defining precepts.  

The revered poet and wordsmith Monilal Gangapodhay once exposed this incident in the presence of Rabindranath himself. The poet only jibed, “So there’s nothing for me to fear from now on!” 

Since then I have met him on many occasions, conversed with him. I have even recited a poem of a song of mine to him here and there. Of course not without the poet himself requesting.  And it was my invaluable fortune to receive unstinting praise from Vishwakavi. In his effuse praise I never detected anything awful; I never felt that there was any polite pretence there.  

If I would retreat in awe of him he would call me back affectionately and sit me by his side. I felt as if all my worship was being justified; that I had got my oft prayed-for blessing.  

If I didn’t visit him for a while he would summon for me. Numerous times he has invited me to stay in his sacred retreat. This hapless soul had not the fortune to accept holy mantra at the feet of this eminent one, wasting his hours chasing his own golden goose.  

On how many momentous occasions has he entreated me with dire warnings! “You are shaving yourself with a sword – the populace will drag you to the mad-house-- ” and so on. 

This is what I perceive. This honor that Vishwakavi has bestowed upon me has illumined my own countenance, true. But by the same degree it has darkened the countenance of other eminent poets. Gradually I find all my best friends and well-wishers slipping into enmity. For these last three to four years these erstwhile well-wishers have been hurling an endless torrent of abuse at me, and still they are not satiated. Oh my god! I never knew before this that there could be such colourful language and such diversity in abuse. 

Just a letter from last Saturday. What broad rustic humor, what putrid strings of abuse took down from the fish-market! Sitting on a rug woven from such strings of abuse I am verily shahenshah, the undisputed monarch of this age.  

The Bengali nation keeps this distinguished record of the mountain of abuse directed at me. Who needs a wasteland! Every week I confront a wasteland of abusive mail. Even all this condemnation became bearable. I could console myself that this is the inevitable drawback of biting more than I can chew. Chap, I told myself, you’re only a toothless, vegetating poet, why this megalomania – why this doggedness to be a lover of the Motherland? When all we expect of you is to repose, open your mouth, take in the fragrance of the flowers, thrill with the yawning of the petals, sing “Flowers bloom with fine perfume!” – instead you have to go and provoke the king! You went to jail, did labor, went on hunger strike, wore chains, made your books one by one outlawed; what sort of sadistic joke are you playing? Why all this hassle and bother?  

One sudden day I apprehend a storm brewing in the heavenly grove of literature. As I watch it seems to me that the cadence of literary creativity is turning into the cacophony of demonic perpetration. Hither and thither! However paradisiacal I make it sound, a storm blowing through this grove will surely render it a mere bamboo clump. Which stone heart will deny this sublime truth.  

Hapless literature of the youth! It is as if the seven impregnable maharathis have been let loose to slay the child Abhimanyu. The mindless children have gathered outside. There is much clapping of hands. They beckon, “Hurry, come along if you want to see the elegant pole of bamboo.” But if it were only the seven fierce maharathis to reckon with! The foot soldiers swarming in their wake are even more fearsome. Sticks, stones, mud, muck – there is no discernment, no taste. Everything is flung at the youth with abandon.  

There is no shame in being stricken by the noble maharathi. But with the indecent antics of these hired thugs from lowly quarters the heavenly grove of literature has been reduced to a mere bamboo clump in a swamp.  

I’ve come to terms with police brutality. Even the brutality of the female has its bounds. But when a litterateur decides to brutalize there is no bounds at all. He becomes even coarser, even crueler, than a provoked policeman. He is like the hornet avenging the demolition of its hive. You can’t escape by plunging into the stream; it will sting you there too. 

Intimidated at last by the pitfalls of politics, I crawled out of this den. I thought, at long last I fall back into the bosom of wholesome literature where I can swallow in a breastful of unadulterated air and forget my misadventures in politics. Oh dear! Who knew that the den of literature is even more noisome than that of politics! 

Ill fate, ill fate! Is there escape from even this den? One day, while the seven maharathis were brandishing their great weapons, as was their custom, I suddenly sat up with realization. Why? 

Because I had finally realized what my crime was. It was the fact that I was young. It was imputed that the youth loved me, and that my devoted followers were all young. 

I cautiously enquired of them, “Pardon, where’s the crime in that?” A multitudinous roar answered me, “Yes, that is your crime! You are young, and the youth make a song and dance about you. “ 

I said, “For the meantime, I can’t suddenly become old just because I am in awe of you. I’ll have to traverse a few odd years of abuse and condemnation before I am that. And those who make a song and dance about me, why don’t you make them dance to your own tune! That would settle it. Why drag me into it?  

There was heard from the background, “But your are the senior bodyguard of Abhimanyu. If we can slay you it is a small matter to win over the prince.  

Let’s see … 

From sheer disregard so far I have not replied in kind to this smoke-fest – neither with smoke from stove, nor with smoke from the cigarette! I thought, well, this is a clash of emperors, so it’s wise to stand apart. But when elephants fight there is no respite for the passive grass beneath them. Therefore we have to take up our guard now. There’s no manliness receiving the brunt in silence. … 

Those who loathed politics, suddenly these very same devotees of the Eden of literature seem to be more drawn to sticks of bamboo. I’m embarrassed. I leave aside those beyond the ken of literature. 

The wielding of these bamboo sticks is also worthy of praise. Instead of aiming for the temple of a certain individual they aim for a nebulous group. In this way there is no shame in missing a target. Heroes indeed! If I have remained quiet up to this point it is because I have accepted defeat in this dirty game. But then they begin to mistake my silence for the haughty airs of victory. So this time they begin to fling entire bamboo poles in my direction, no mere arrows!  

However, they try to punch a few holes along the length of the bamboo so that in its ballistic flight it begins to sound some melodies of a flute. But even then the pounding and coarse nature of the impact makes it clear that this is not a flute – it’s a bamboo pole. 

It’s sad but it’s also hilarious to see the fingers that are meant to be playing the lyre are wielding a lethal pole. Who really come top in the muscular antics of the hero it is hard to tell… 

In today’s edition of Banglar Katha I saw Bhisma lending support to the slaying of Abhimanyu. Bhisma is he who decided to lead the hundred sons of blind Dhritarastra into the ultimate battle against the Pandavas. The Bhisma of today’s India is Gurudev Rabindranth Tagore, equally respected by the faction of Dhritarastra and his opponents, the Pandavas. In the Mahabharat noble hearted Bhisma was inwardly opposed to the slaughter of Kurukshetra. But he who is Bhisma in today’s Bharat approves – there is nothing more painfully tragic in this age. 

This defender of Abhimanyu is of the opinion that Kaviguru has not missed his opportunity to fling an arrow my way. He accuses me of using a certain word indiscriminately – the word “khoon”. 

Paying the due respect of a devotee at the feet of the poet, Kaviguru himself dons the Moslem cap and paijama, so why the mistrust when we do? 

This using of Arabic and Persian words is not only done by me. Well before me it was done by Bharatchandra, Rabindranath, Satyendra and so on.  

Something has caught my attention for quite a while now. Members of the very respectable Hindu families are beginning to don paijama, sherwani, toopi, and they don’t even avoid the lungi. Nobody jeers at them for doing so; they euphemistically become “oriental”. But when the musalmans wear the same they are taunted as miya shaheb. If there were a contest between the beards of the maulana and that of the muni, it’s difficult to call the victor. Yet there’s no end to the mockery that is brewed up on this pretext.  

I’ve been avoiding this beard, paijama, sherwani, toopi penchant only because I dread this miya shaheb taunt. Yet there is no reprieve. 

Alright, I won’t say ‘adalat’ anymore, I’ll say ‘bicharaloi’. But where does it end? What will I call a ‘najir’, a ‘peshkar’, an ‘ookil’, a ‘moktar’? 

This standard complaint coming from Kaviguru is really unwarranted. In a poem addressed to Italy he says “utaaro ghomta”. We are used to hearing “ghomta kholo”. If I had written “utaaro ghomta” I would have been branded a literary criminal. But wherever the word ‘utaaro’ may come from, who can deny the cadence and beauty that emanates from this particular usage? I am tempted to use a foreign word that generates pace, that initiates rhythm, and that is why I end up using Arabic and Persian words. Kaviguru himself has pointed out the triumph of such usage on many occasions in debate and discussion. 

We are beginning to feel that today’s Rabindranath is not our all-familiar Rabindranath anymore. Now we are prone to the suspicion that the grammar pundits are making him say all this. 

In my poetry, I don’t use the word “khoon” in order to introduce a Moslem or a Bolshevik color. Probably the poet is not favorable to either of these colors at the moment, and this occasions his dissatisfaction. 

Not only “khoon”, I have used many other Arabic and Persian words in my poetry, words which are common currency in today’s Bengali. From my point of view, I have a substantial excuse. My feeling is that Laxmi in the sphere of world literature has a Moslem demeanor. Neither do I think that the goddess loses any of her outstanding beauty in Moslem attire. The great departed Ajit Chakravarti too has extolled this demeanor.  

If the Laxmi of Bengali literature is donned with a pair of Iranian “jewor” than I don’t suppose she loses caste distinction. In fact it makes her more khoobsurat – beautiful.  

Laxmi in today’s artistic sphere is almost half Moslem in décor. All artistes admit the need and appropriateness of such external form. Pandit Malbiya may not do so, but those who matter, Rabindranath, Abanindranath, will certainly do so.  

Yet again, the “khoon” that Kaviguru makes an issue of is constantly being used in relation to the everyday color box, and that’s leaving aside the ubiquitous usage of “khoon” in the sense of committing murder. Khoona-khooni is also rampant in the world of romance even today. And it is certainly not restricted to the Moslem lanes and alleys. 

I have a song:  

“Udibe se rabi amaderi khoone rangiya punarbar.” (The sun will rise time and time again soaked in our very own blood.)

 I sang this song with the audience of Kaviguru, and it occasioned his unfortunate remark. He favors the usage of “rakta”. His point was that I could easily have said, “Udibe se rabi amaderi rakte rangiya punarbar.” Yes, I could have, but it would have taken away half the vital force of the sentence. Where I used the word “khoon” it was surely in a song, or in a poem, of patriotic zeal, or of apocalyptic fervor. Where it is pertinent to say “raktadhara” I have never been lured into using “khoondhara”. That doesn’t mean that I mix terms. I wouldn’t say “rakta-kharabi” – I would either say “rakta-rakti” or “khoon-kharabi”. 

Kaviguru supposes the meaning of “rakta” to be wider than it really is. That is can be used effortlessly in a love poem. True, but it requires much ancillary passion to be added therein. Khoon does not bloom on the sweetheart’s cheek, and neither does rakta – not until the teeth bloodies it. I don’t play the khoona-khooni game with my sweetheart. But I might partake in frivolous khoon-suri (playful argument).  

Apart of Kaviguru, a lot of other litterateurs forget that the Laxmi of literature has followers amongst the Moslem too, and probably half her following is as such.  It is not that they are expecting toopi and chapkan clad poets. They want to listen sometimes to the sarangi amongst the strains of the violin. They want phuloboner kokil to be interrupted now and then by bagichar bulbul. 

Those who suppose that Mahabharat loses defiled thereby, I advice them to avoid the literature-assembly and crowd instead in the assembly of Hindu adepts.  

Beyond the confines of the dictionary, Kaviguru has coined so many words that he has surely stored for posterity three more similar tomes, filled with his creative accumulations. It’s hard to believe that this same creative genius takes fright at a new word. It leaves the impression that behind this fright there lies the influence of many and much. I also feel that all the accumulated accusations leveled against me by my erudite enemies are beginning to impinge on the great mind of the poet. Otherwise, my fondness for Arabic and Persian words is nothing new, and Kaviguru’s acquaintance with me and my poetry is long-standing. Why, the issue never came up before this! 

The saddest point comes when I see fireflies far below the Rabilok (the sphere of the sun) making grand postures in poetics. Can it be that these are the only devotees of the poet, they who cuddle his audience night and day in order to feed it with petty charges against others and thereby disturb his sublime and serene mind? And are we reduced to being his enemy because we don’t seek his company as frequently? 

This is my entreaty to Kabiguru, that if he wants to assume the general-ship of Dhritarastra, that is fine. But do not harbor mistrust on account of base finger pointers, and thereby lessen your undoubted glory.  

Those who stick closest to the dev-mandir precinct, these thugs are not the greatest devotees of dev.  

There is one more point. And I entreat a frank response from the poet. 

Picking up a strain from his recent writings, I get the feeling that he is even beginning to make fun of our cursed existence of poverty.  

Of course, the wealth-laden poet has ample luxury to cultivate suspicion that our grief is not sincere. It is also true that the poet shares, to a greater or lesser extent, every grief in the world except that particular one, which is the greatest grief of all – poverty. That is why even though I felt hurt I did not mind.  

What tremendous poverty we new writers have to fight against, day and night, half-starved – I am sure that Kaviguru knows nothing of this by the grace of Laxmi Devi. I pray to god that he never has to. Kaviguru has never laid foot into the hut of a struggling writer like me – and if he did so I don’t think his immense glory would have been diminished at all. If he did venture this way he would have felt for the pulverizing extent of our poverty! Shattered and threadbare, we are in a virtual hiding from the country. Far from spreading our propaganda from country to country, we are ashamed to show ourselves beyond our own doorstep. We struggle in vain to hide the patches of our worn-out garb. Amongst the gentle and educated we feel awkward, as if we’ve committed an awful crime in sharing their company. The whiplashes of such poverty land inside the soul, and day by day it makes us rebellious.  

I feign to visit Kaviguru because I am ashamed of my poverty. In this hapless frame, I fear that the gatekeeper might not want to let me into the poet’s elevated preserve of enlightenment.  

Then the curse of the gods might be my lot because I, the devotee, have thus failed to make a cherished pilgrimage. In that case I only have my fate to bemoan.  

To sum up my entreaty of him, let him fling as many arrows as he may, I will bear it all. But please do not rub salt in the wound by making fun of the anguish of my poverty. This last cruelty I cannot bear. 

There is one more request that this devotee presents at the feet of Kaviguru. That if we have committed error then that he should receive us in the affection of a guru and gently point out to us our mistake. We will accept his judgment with bowed reverence. But when we see him become the base vehicle of those who only know how to spread scandal and how to fling abuse, then our head stoops on shame and distress. Vishwakavi is an emperor’s seat; it is Ravilok, the sphere of the sun – it is far, far above mud slinging.

I have received a rumor that Sharachandra, the king of wordsmiths, has flung a barrage of abuse my way while addressing the readers of Shanibarer Chitthi. Be it so I know that he would never dishonor my poverty. He has always depicted the sorrow of the downtrodden with magnanimity, and for this very reason he has risen very close to Ravilok – to the orbit of Rabindranath.

One day the wordsmith Surendra Gangapodhay regaled me with an anecdote. Sharatchandra has pledged all his vast earning, he said, towards a home for stray dogs. Those starved dogs that roam the cruel streets will be able to take shelter in this home – free of charge. He also told me that Sharachandra has worked out that these stray dogs were poets in the previous existence; that they died and became dogs. He also assured me that the pertinent legal will to this end was already written.

After listening to this narration I repeatedly flung myself to the ground in obeisance to Sharatchandra, and uttered, “Sharatda is truly great!” It is absolutely true that we litterateurs belong to the species of the dog. We bicker like dogs, and we starve like dogs.  He has super-sensory perception indeed. He has seen the avatar of the poet.

Thus I have only one prayer. If there be reincarnation, I wish not be born as a poet in this land. If I return I wish to be a dog in Sharatchandra’s charitable home. There I will be content that I have enough to eat.

[Source: Nazrul Rochonaboli, Vol. 4, 1996, pp. 23-29]

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