चंद्रयान, सौर-अभियान, और भारतीय शक्ति

जयंत महापात्र
(22 अक्टूबर 1928 – 27 अगस्त 2023)

प्रसिद्ध भारतीय कवि डॉ. जयंत महापात्र का अवसान भारतीय साहित्य क्षेत्र की अपूर्णनीय क्षति है। सेतु परिवार की सम्वेदनाएँ!

15 अगस्त को वरिष्ठ साहित्यकार रामदरश मिश्र जी ने अपना शतक जन्मदिन मनाया। हार्दिक बधाइयाँ! इस शुभ-अवसर पर प्रकाश मनु जी का आलेख ‘पथ सूना है तुम हो, हम हैं, आओ बात करें’ इस अंक में प्रस्तुत है।

भारतीय परम्परा और संस्कृति दुनिया भर से अलग है। कड़वे करेले को हम नमकीन भी बना देते हैं, और मीठा भी। आश्चर्य नहीं कि चंद्रयान-3 के अवतरण के लिये भारत ने चंद्रमा का अछूता अंधक्षेत्र, दक्षिणी ध्रुव चुना, जिसका नामकरण अब शिव-शक्ति बिंदु हुआ है।चंद्रयान-3 के सफल अभियान के बाद भारत के सूर्य-अभियान के लिये 'आदित्य एल वन' शनिवार 2 सितम्बर को PSLV-C57 द्वारा भेजा जा रहा है। इन अभियानों ने भारत को अंतरिक्ष-विज्ञान और उच्च-तकनीक के अग्रणी पंक्ति में अकाट्य स्थान दिलाया है।

रामदरश मिश्र

कुछ दशक पहले जब सूचना प्रौद्योगिकी के क्षेत्र में भारत को पहचान मिलने लगी थी तब भारत की नयी-नयी सफलता को स्वीकारना अनेक लोगों के लिये कठिन था। स्पष्ट है, पड़ोसियों के नाम पर प्रतिकूल सैनिक, मज़हबी, और कम्युनिस्ट तानाशाहियों से घिरा एक नवोदित लोकतंत्र जिसे आज़ादी से पहले सदियों तक निरंतर नोचा-खसोटा गया, जो तब अशिक्षा, और विपन्नता सहित भाँति-भाँति के आतंकवाद से भी जूझ रहा था, उच्च तकनीक के क्षेत्र में उन्नति कैसे कर सकता था, वह भी तब, जब औद्योगिक क्रांति में उसे सिंगापुर, हॉङ्गकॉङ्ग, ताइवान, कोरिया, और जापान जैसे छोटे देशों से भी पिछड़ा माना जाता रहा हो, उसकी 5% की आर्थिक प्रगति को कमतर मानकर 'हिंदू रेट ऑफ़ ग्रोथ' कहा गया हो, अन्य देशों को गतिमान बाघ और ड्रैगन कहकर उसे सुस्त हाथी की उपाधि दी गयी हो। औद्योगिक क्रांति में भारत धीमा अवश्य था लेकिन उसके स्पष्ट कारण थे। सदियों की ग़ुलामी ने न केवल विकास बल्कि आत्मसम्मान का भी निरंतर दमन किया था। अंग्रेज़ जब गये थे अधिकांश भारत में सीवेज व्यवस्था तक नहीं थी।

तब के तथाकथित अंतरराष्ट्रीय विशेषज्ञों का ध्यान इस बात पर नहीं था कि देश की अंकित इकॉनॉमी के समांतर एक अनंकित इकॉनॉमी भी चल रही थी जिसकी वजह से भारतीय आँकड़े अंडर-रिपोर्टेड थे। बेशक़, इस कारण करों से होने वाली आय भी सीमित थी। उन्हें यह भी इल्म नहीं था कि औद्योगिक क्रांति के लिये जिस प्रकार की मूलभूत संरचना की आवश्यकता पड़ती है वह भारत जैसे विशाल, बहुसंख्यक, लोकतांत्रिक, और तुलनात्मक रूप से अनुशासनहीन देश में अन्य नन्हे राष्ट्रों के मुकाबले धीमी ही होनी थी। लेकिन भारत के विषय में सबसे महत्त्वपूर्ण अज्ञान भारतीय संस्कृति से अपरिचय का था। भारतीय संस्कृति में अनेक ऐसे अद्वितीय मूलभूत तत्त्व हैं जो उसे मास-मैन्युफेक्चरिंग की तुलना में कला, तथा वैचारिक-वैज्ञानिक क्षेत्रों में शेष संसार से कहीं आगे रखते हैं। शिक्षा और पक्षहीनता की बात हो या वैविध्य की स्वीकृति और मतभेद के आदर की, भारत समय से आगे चला है। भारतीय संस्कृति सिद्धांत, शिक्षा, समन्वय, और चिंतन की संस्कृति है। उत्पादन और निर्माण कठिन नहीं लेकिन औद्योगिक क्रांतियों के मूल में रही दासत्व, शोषण, तानाशाही तथा अन्य दुष्प्रवृत्तियाँ 'सत्यमेव जयते नानृतम्' के भारतीय चरित्र के विपरीत हैं, इसलिये उस क्षेत्र में चीन जैसी दमनकारी कम्युनिस्ट तानाशाहियों से तुलना ग़लत है। भारत के वास्तविक स्वरूप से अपरिचित जन के लिये भारत के उत्थान की बात न सोच पाना स्वाभाविक था।

दो-ढाई दशक पहले चीन गये एक भारतीय लेखक ने वहाँ की सड़कों और वाहनों की तारीफ़ करके, ड्राइवर द्वारा अंग्रेज़ी न समझने का ज़िक्र किया और भारत के भविष्य की चिंता करते हुए लिखा कि यदि चीनी अंग्रेज़ी सीख गये तो भारत का क्या होगा। मुझे पढ़कर आश्चर्य हुआ था कि उनके मन में यह बात नहीं आयी कि यदि भारत में सड़कें सुधर जायेंगी तो चीन का क्या होगा। सूचना-प्रौद्योगिकी में भारत की प्रगति के आरम्भिक काल में अनेक विशेषज्ञों ने भारतीय प्रगति का श्रेय भारत में अंग्रेज़ी भाषा की उपस्थिति और परोक्ष रूप से ब्रिटिश राज को दिया था। वे भूल गये कि अंग्रेज़ी न जानने वाले बहुसंख्यक भारतीय भी अपनी मातृभाषा के अतिरिक्त एक या दो अन्य भाषाएँ बोलते-समझते हैं। कम्प्यूटर की भाषा यदि अंग्रेज़ी की जगह जापानी या स्वाहिली होती तो बहुभाषी भारतीयों को उसे अपनाने में अधिक समय नहीं लगता। बात अंग्रेज़ी की नहीं, भाषायी वैविध्य की सांस्कृतिक स्वीकृति की है। वैसे भी सड़क बनाना एक नयी भाषा समझने-अपनाने जैसा जटिल शैक्षिक-सांस्कृतिक परिवर्तन नहीं।

सन् 2007 में स्रजित 'इंडिया एज़ एन आईटी सुपरपॉवर' (India as an IT superpower: Strategy for success) में मैंने जो कुछ भी कहा था वह सब आज सच साबित हो चुका है। आज भारतीय गूगल और माइक्रोसॉफ़्ट के प्रमुख ही नहीं, यूरोप और अमेरिका के प्रमुख राजनेता भी हैं। पुस्तक में मैंने इस बात पर ध्यान दिलाया था कि उच्च-तकनीक के लिये भारत की सांस्कृतिक शक्ति आई-टी तक सीमित रहने वाली नहीं है, वह अंतरिक्ष में, और उन सब क्षेत्रों में चमकेगी ही जहाँ, विज्ञान, और अमूर्त सोच की आवश्यकता है।  

प्रश्नोपनिषद् से आज तक भारतीय परम्परा प्रश्न पूछने की है, ज्ञान अर्जित और विस्तृत करने की है। सन् 1848 में बॉस्टन, अमेरिका में विश्व का पहला सार्वजनिक पुस्तकालय बनने से पहले पश्चिम में जन-सामान्य के लिये पुस्तकें आभिजात्य विलास से कम नहीं थीं जबकि भारत में श्रुति, कथावाचन, उपदेश, दोहे-चौपाई, और लीला-मंचन जैसे अनेक साधनों द्वारा ग्रंथीय ज्ञान को जन-सामान्य तक पहुँचाया जाता रहा था। कुछ लोग कहेंगे कि वह ग्रंथीय ज्ञान आधुनिक विज्ञान नहीं था उन्हें इस सम्बंध में दो बातें ध्यान में रखना आवश्यक है। पहली यह कि बात ज्ञान के प्रकार तक सीमित नहीं बल्कि उससे कहीं आगे ज्ञान के विस्तार की इच्छा की है, ज्ञान को प्रोटेक्टेड या पेटेंटेड करने के बजाय उसे पब्लिक डोमेन में लाने की सदिच्छा की है। दूसरी बात यह ब्रिटिश राज ने जानबूझकर भारतीय जनता को आधुनिक ज्ञान से वंचित रखा था क्योंकि वे भयभीत थे कि शिक्षा का नैरंतर्य भारतीयों का आयुध बनकर परतंत्रता की बेड़ियों को सरलता से तोड़ सकता था। परतंत्रता के दशकों में भारत पश्चिम में हो रही प्रगति से तो काटा ही गया यहाँ के पारम्परिक ज्ञान के स्रोतों को भी नष्ट करके उसके प्रति एक ऐसा हीनताबोध विकसित किया गया जो आज भी बार-बार सर उठाता नज़र आता है। धनिक वर्ग विदेश जाकर शिक्षित हो सकता था लेकिन तत्कालीन शिक्षा व्यवस्था की रुचि भारतीयों को शेष संसार में हो रही प्रगति से अवगत कराने की बिल्कुल भी नहीं थी।

1947 के बाद परतंत्रता की बेड़ियाँ टूटीं और भारतीयता की सूखी, मुरझायी बेल फिर से पल्लवित हुई। हमसे ही अलग हुए पाकिस्तान में आजकल अति-नैराश्य और अवसाद की स्थिति है। वे समझ नहीं पा रहे हैं कि वे भारत से कब और क्यों पिछड़ गये। क्या यह प्रश्न वाक़ई इतना कठिन है? काश, कर्म-फल सिद्धांत में एक प्रीव्यू बटन भी होता तो जिन्ना से धोखा खाने वाले उसकी चाल और उसके दूरगामी दुष्परिणामों से चेत रह पाते।

इस महीने कैनेडा में टैग टीवी प्रसिद्धि वाले पत्रकार ताहिर असलम गोरा के प्रयत्नों से दक्षिण एशियाई भाषा-साहित्य सम्मेलन हुआ जिसमें कैनेडा, और भारत सहित अनेक देशों से भागीदारी हुई। समारोह में सेतु पत्रिका भी सम्मानित हुई। सेतु के लिये नालंदा सम्मान स्मृतिचिह्न स्टॉकहोम विश्वविद्यालय के प्रख्यात पूर्व आचार्य डॉ. इश्तियाक़ अहमद द्वारा डॉ. संगीता शर्मा तथा डॉ. सुनील शर्मा को प्रदान किया गया। आप सभी को बधाई क्योंकि आपका सहयोग और समर्थन ही सेतु की पहचान है।

शुभाकांक्षी,

सेतु, पिट्सबर्ग
31 अगस्त 2023 ✍️

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सेतु, अगस्त 2023

Review: RE-READING JAYANTA MAHAPATRA THROUGH NANDINI SAHU'S LENS

"This book is the tribute, highest respect, from a young poet to a senior poet, from a devotee to divinity incarnate, idol embodied." says Prof. Nandini Sahu in the Critical Introduction to her book titled Re-Reading Jayanta Mahapatra (Selected Poems). It elegantly sums up the relationship that she shares with Jayanta Mahapatra, a name synonymous with the foundation of Indian English poetry.

Jayanta Mahapatra (1928- ) is the first Indian English poet to have won the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1971. He considered as one of the founding fathers of Indian English poetry alongside Nissim Ezekiel and A.K Ramanujan. A prolific writer, he has published more than ten collections of poetry and a few prose pieces and continues to write till date. Also a bilingual poet, he has written several poems in his mother tongue Odia. His poetry offers a wide canvass of themes ranging from his familial relationships to the depravity of the society to representations of cultural landscapes of Odisha. Some of his notable works are A Rain of Rites (1976), Relationship (1980), Bare Face (2000), and Hesitant Light (2016).

Prof. Nandini Sahu, Amazon’s best-selling author 2022, Professor of English and Former Director, School of Foreign Languages, IGNOU, New Delhi, India, is an established Indian English poet, creative writer and folklorist. She is the author/editor of seventeen books. She is the recipient of the Literary Award/Gold Medal from the Hon’ble Vice President of India for her contribution to English Studies. Her areas of research interest cover New Literatures, Critical Theory, Folklore and Culture Studies, Children’s Literature and American Literature.

Through this book aptly titled: Re-Reading Jayanta Mahapatra (Selected Poems), Sahu has shed new light on Mahapatra’s poetic oeuvre. The critical introduction covers the poet's entire career, starting with his early poems to his most recent publications. Several scholars like John Oliver Perry, M.K Naik, Bruce King, and Madhusudan Prasad have critically looked at Mahapatra vis-à-vis post-colonialism, modernism and symbolism. However, Sahu’s re-reading of the poet in question is unique because of the way she has successfully connected the poet’s personal life with his poetry. By doing so, she is encouraging the readers to read the poet in conjunction with his life. Her psychoanalytical approach sheds light on aspects of Mahapatra’s poetry which were hitherto invisible to his readers. Referring to his autobiography, Sahu has interwoven the details of his personal life with their varied representations in his poetry. This is a novel way of reinterpreting some of his poems. For instance, Sahu points out that Mahapatra had a loving relationship with his father which is reflected in the poetry collection Whiteness of Bone (1979) where he talks about his dying father or remembers the daily rituals his father used to practice when he was home.

Mahapatra’s complex relationship with his past is said to have affected him in ways that he himself did not fathom. She says, "His mind lurks in the past in quest of something that he himself is not aware of" (p. 16). Sahu has tried to unveil the complex relationship that the poet shares with his past by probing deep into his psyche. Looking into his past is like re-reading his poems in a different context. She focuses her attention on the recollective mode of Jayanta Mahapatra. In a poem titled “Grandfather”, the poet remembers reading the old, yellow stained diary of his grandfather. According to Sahu, “Mahapatra holds his grandfather accountable for the pessimism in the family because of his absence…the reawakening of the memories of his grandfather through the yellow diary becomes both a mien of joy and sorrow…(p.20)”. By citing several examples from Mahapatra’s works, Sahu highlights his past relationships starting with his grandfather, then moving to his father and mother.

The poet is seen negotiating, not only with people, but also with some of the past spaces he has occupied. Sahu observes and tries to decipher the ways in which remnants of his childhood home along with the people who used to reside in it continue to perturb him. Quoting these lines from Mahapatra’s poem “The Dispossessed”:

 

There is a photograph still hanging

on the wall in my father’s house. It is quite old,

and against an elaborate

backdrop the photographer used

are my parents, my younger brother and I.

I want to shut it from my mind

because it reminds one of a useless monument.

Sahu portrays the gripping effect that the space still has on the poet. He seems to seek solace in his past. The poet is seen continually negotiating with the notion of home, what it means to him after so many years, and why he feels lost. Continuously probing into his actions, his failures, Sahu has enriched our critical understanding of the psychological underpinning of the poet’s poems by searching for connection between his home and family members who are now deceased.

The transformation of the poet in terms of his transition from writing love poems to writing poems on larger issues of life is also traced in the critical introduction by Sahu. In the early part of his career, Mahapatra used to write extensively on the themes of love. According to Sahu, Mahapatra views love as the “seminal needs of the mortals” (p. 18). His maturity as a poet reflects in his poetry subsequently when he started writing about the history of India and his locale. The preoccupation with the past stays the same. Only now, he is reflecting on the past by focusing on historical incidents. According to Sahu, "The present which seldom comforts him, seems to be a sheer support system to reach back to the past"(p. 32). This past that Sahu is referring to is his cultural past. In doing so, she is able to clearly show us the progression that Mahapatra has undergone from being a personal poet to being a poet writing about the collective history of a shared tradition.

Sahu shows the readers how acutely aware Mahapatra is of the traditional Odia customs and the binding power of Lord Jagannath. His familiarity with the rich cultural past of Odisha stems from the strained relationship he shares with his Christian identity in a land dominated by the Hindu tradition. The whirlwind of emotions that the poet experiences in connection with his position in the Odia society is linked to his fractured religious identity by Sahu. His grandfather had forcibly converted to Christianity during the devastating famine of 1866. Sahu says, "The one aspect of the cultural heritageof his native land is that he is never tired of portraying the religious rituals and worship in these temples" (p. 38). Mahapatra also feels burdened and is affected by the legend of King Ashoka and the Kalinga war that killed thousands. She cites poems like “Dawn at Puri” and “Relationship” to depict the multifaceted representations of his traditional past.

Moving from the past to the contemporary society occupied by the poet, Sahu has also depicted the effects the “contemporary Indian degenerative situation” (p. 51) has on Mahapatra. Quoting his lines from poems like Japan II, Sometimes, “The Lost Children of America", “The twenty-fifth Anniversary of a Republic", she comments on his highly sensitive treatment of these issues. They are naked truths of life that disturb him. Sahu also makes interesting observation on the nature of time in Mahapatra’s poetry. She remarks, “Even if the poet has a sense of belongingness to the present, he is agonized because of the fleeting nature of time..” (p 77). Mahapatra is seen to be taking huge leaps across centuries, perhaps in search of steady ground, feeling “remote” in the present, but not comfortable in the past either, according to Sahu.

The poems in this collection shed light on the various modes of interaction through which Mahapatra reflects and dwells on the past. His personal relationships, his friendships, the Odia society, historical past of the state, all collide to form a huge backdrop for his poems. The poems that have found a place in this collection have been carefully curated by Sahu. She has meticulously selected some of Mahapatra’s best poems that depict the diverse range of themes he has written about till date. This book not only serves as an excellent entry point for readers who have never read Mahapatra but it will also be helpful for academics looking for a comprehensive critical introduction to the poet.  Sahu has successfully reaffirmed the importance of re-reading Jayanta Mahapatra as his poems are evergreen and the more one reads him, the more there is to discover. Through her re-reading of Mahapatra’s poetry, she has proved his poems are able to withstand the test of time. In doing so, she has successfully reiterated the crucial role that Mahapatra has played in shaping the legacy of Indian English Poetry.

 

Reviewer’s Bio: Dikshya Samantarai is a PhD Research Scholar from the Department of English, School of Humanities, IGNOU. Working on Mahapatra’s poetry, her research contributes in the ambit of Indian English Poetry.  She completed her Masters in English from Hindu College, University of Delhi in 2018. Currently, she is engaged as a Guest Faculty in Department of English, Miranda House, University of Delhi. Her other areas of interest include science fiction, magic realism and theories on body politics. She has also published a paper titled ‘Question of Authenticity in the Man in the High Castle’ in Journal of Arts, IIS University.

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Setu, September 2022

Contemporary Concerns: Guni Vats

The play of truth and illusion: Language as myth in the poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra

                                                                                      - Guni Vats

Abstract:

Guni Vats

Language is not merely a medium of communication but also the mode of expression. Jayanta Mahapatra uses language in his poems with the precision of a musician to express what he experienced. Mithya or myths in Hindu mythology are read as subjective truths, truths that don’t claim to be universal but are true in a specific frame of reference. Once the words are made free of their fixed meanings and treated as metaphors, they initiate a free play of meanings, where signifiers could refer to any number of signified and each signified gives a new meaning to the entire text. This paper attempts to read three of Mahapatra’s poems treating language as myth. A Missing Person breaks away from the scientific truth of space and time and in the illusion is realized a missing woman, a woman who is not found by the mirror but the drunk flames of an oil lamp. Her Hand is an apology of a guilty nation whose hypocrisy does not allow it to hold the hand of a rape victim but are reduced to mere spectator. Hunger is the narration of vulgar stance of hunger and its satiation that does not hide under ornate language or metaphors. Mahapatra breaks apart from every convention to convey his mystic experience and thus his truth often germinates from the myths of his land and he often layers his myth with the truth of his experiences. By studying his language as myth and appreciating the metaphorical existence of his works, the paper tries to celebrate the free play of truth and illusion that his poems create. They offer something for everybody, they are the poems that germinate from the soil and the soul and they sure reach where they germinate from, thus completing its cyclic existence.

Keywords: Language, Myth, Truth, Metaphors, Illusions.

Introduction

                The drive toward the formation of metaphors is the fundamental human drive, which one cannot for a single instant dispense with in thought, for one would thereby dispense with man himself. (Nietzsche 7)

Language is not merely a medium of communication but an expression. And if mankind has ever evolved its aesthetic of expression, it is best served with the sophistication of poetry. The arrangement of words designed to satisfy the appetite of human need for art convey more than what is reflected by the black ink. They open a realm of free play of meanings. The words were designated fixed meanings to construct a social order that must rely on a scientific system of existence. An existence where the stimuli were designated sound and visual symbols. These symbols do not attempt to sing the universal truth but only simplify the riddle of stimuli and the overused words automatically assume the shape of truth making the case for scientific evidence. Myths in Hindu mythology hold a sacred place as they are not dismissed as the lies told for satiating the hunger of belief but are celebrated as the subjective truth. Myth is the truth told from a frame of reference, it is not universal but fixed and limited. Language and myth could thus be both understood as metaphors, metaphors that have been used repeatedly to earn a place of truth.

            What then is truth? A movable host of metaphors, metonymies, and; anthropomorphisms: in short, a sum of human relations which have been poetically and rhetorically intensified, transferred, and embellished, and which, after long usage, seem to people to be fixed, canonical, and binding. Truths are illusions which we have forgotten are illusions- they are metaphors that have become worn out and have been drained of sensuous force, coins which have lost their embossing and are now considered as metal and no longer as coins. (Nietzsche 4)

Jayanta Mahapatra is a celebrated poet known for the ‘difficulty’ of his poems. Critics agree that his poems are not meant as mere appreciation of language or the scenery but convey much more that surpasses the limited understanding of a literary piece. His usage of language and selection of diction sets apart his poems as they paint a canvas with the precision of a painter and hides the bright light of a star under the darkness of night sky using best the aesthetics of an artist. His work hardly offers poetic relief; it taunts the reader and evokes him to scratch his senses to the best of his ability to decipher what hides beneath every word and the space between words. Truth in art is a fairly subjective concept and it could be argued that the aim of a work of art is never to establish a universal truth but to deconstruct the rigidity that forms a truth. Mahapatra’s poems shatter the established images beautifully. They offer a piece of satisfaction for every curious mind; his poems unwind in layers and with every depth they take on a new meaning. My paper attempts to dig in the layers of his poems by freeing the words of their rigid and limited meanings. I attempt to peel the layers of his words by finding metaphors and not meanings. The poems without the rigidity of literary forms and meanings take the form of myths, the subjective truths that are expressed by the metaphors of his poems and their significance in the culture we live in.

Truth and illusion play a confusing game. The deciding verdict stays with belief. Words together only create a myriad of illusions and its deliberate usage and decided presence establish the paradigm of truth. Mahapatra’s poems oscillate between illusion and truth. He writes what he experiences and to understand his poetry is to walk in his steps through the sceneries that he has been in. The language he uses in his poems could be taken away from the accepted meanings and provided with the less obvious interpretations and when this happens they can be seen in absolutely different light; poems that may not be social documents but a narration of pain and anguish, the process of creation of a myth. His poetry breaks the ‘forms’ and thus enters in the field of free play of signifiers. Looking at his poems with this point of view would not require a detailed study of his experiences but only the portraits he sketches through his words. He discloses the metaphorical lives we all lead in the mythic society only to create the comfort of a permanent truth but that only ultimately unveils the vulgarity of illusion hidden under every established meaning.

A Missing Person is the saga of a woman in three crisp stanzas. An onlooker expresses the plight of ‘a woman’. Her actions coincide with the play of light and darkness and burn her passions at the end. The title declares a person that is missing, it neither is the appeal of finding the lost nor is it an admission of what is lost. It is the plain acceptance of a person, and not a woman, who is missing. A missing person who could be any among the billion faces populating the world. The three stanzas could be read as transcending the fetters of time and space. The first stanza establishes the dark room as the site of action but the third line shatters the admission when the mirror seems to consume the space. The darkness of room merely becomes an instrument while the scene of action transcends to the mirror that fails to reflect the woman. The second line establishes ‘a woman’, the woman that stands, the only truth that seems existent in the dark room. The stanza probably plays with the sentiments of academicians sympathetic to the woman. The play of metaphor could be enjoyed when the woman could be established as present and the mirror unable to reflect her existence. The instrument meant for reflection fails to act on its truth and what is left is a mere illusion. The next stanza shifts the time frame when the woman ‘waits’ at the ‘edge of her sleep’. The edge of sleep establishes the illusion further where it points at a transitional stage from wakefulness to sleep. The state of consciousness that easily gives way to hallucinations and maybe that is what she is waiting for. After the failure of mirror to reflect her, she turns to her hallucinations to find her, to reflect her. The failure of an established scientific truth leads to the onset of an illusion, a myth that for her seems to be the ultimate truth. The third stanza illuminates the darkened room with the ‘oil lamp’. The shift from darkness to light might have provided with an image in the mirror, which she no longer needs. Her reflection does not depend on the truth of light and mirror but the illusion of a source of light in her hand, the truth in her hand that may find the illusion in her. The stanza might just be an extension of the hallucination where the ‘drunken yellow flames’ dance to reach out to her body, her passions and find in her the body she hides. She does not need the truth of a mirror to find her but the illusion of drunken flames and the poet shows how:

            in her hands she holds

                the oil lamp

                whose drunken yellow flames

                know where her lovely body hides.  (The Lie of Dawns 89)

Her Hand resonates like the apology that is an expression of a sorry and a guilty nation. The title does not disclose the horrific act or the plight; it only unveils her hand, the hand of a rape victim. The first line declares that the hand of the girl is ‘made of darkness’ and the very second line discloses the hypocrisy with the question, ‘how will I hold it?’ (Mahapatra 20) The intention is to provide support then why does the darkness matter and why is there darkness? The ‘how’ speaks for the inability of a hypocrite society that only talks of sympathy but in return only designates the victim with profound darkness. The second stanza paints the image of hell; the ‘decapitated heads’ of streetlamps appear to be the hung heads that decorate the gates of death and the ‘blood’ that ‘opens that terrible door between us’ appears to be the Miton’s gate to hell. Could the ‘I’ in the first stanza be the dilemma of the lord of death who has come to take the ‘little girl’ while the ashamed inanimate streetlamps, meant to give light, stand in shame on witnessing the gruesome act of cruelty. The third stanza screams of the country, whose mouth is ‘clamped in pain’, the country that fails to even cry at the pain of its residents. ‘While its body writhes on its bed of nails’, creates the image of a nation lying on a bed of nails, writhing but unable to scream of pain because of the brace that shuts its mouth. These two lines shred every piece of sanity in the unashamed nation that is unable to even cry for the pain of the little girl that lies unattended on its street. The ‘raped body’ of the girl is only that is left for holding; her soul might have departed when the act of rape was committed. The body lies on the street in darkness but the resistance is so strong that even the ‘guilt’ of death fails to ‘hug her’.

            This little girl has just her raped body

                for me to reach her

                The weight of my guilt is unable

                to overcome my resistance to hug her. (Mahapatra 20)

The poem might have taunted the Gods or spat at the country that unashamedly resists holding the raped body. It uses the hand as a metaphor for support and shatters the illusion of a country believing in myths while abandoning its own. The image of the body of nation writhing on bed of nails might bring back the memory of Bhishma from Mahabharata. The grandfather of both Pandavas and Kauravas, who lived his life proving true to his swear but then fell at the battleground on the bed of arrows. While he lay there awaiting his death he witnessed the bloodshed where his family fought against its own blood. The Bharata we live in today could be disillusioned with this myth, when the act of Dharma and Truth have reduced to mere myths and the truth stabs the illusions so cruelly that we end up killing our own and then fail to merely hold her hand.

Hunger is the vulgar narration of a stance of hunger and its satiation. The poem opens with the confession of the narrator’s hunger, ‘it was hard to believe that the flesh was heavy on my back’. (The Lie of Dawns 41) It might have been hard for him to admit to his humanly hunger of satiating the need of his flesh but he walks through the poem as if in trance and narrates the events that opened the door to a hunger that his hunger might satiate. The fisherman’s casual proposal, ‘will you have her’ and his careless trails of his nets and nerves lead the narrator to a home that whined with pangs of hunger. The narrator followed the ‘sanctified’ purpose but is almost immediately shocked with the consequence of proposal, ‘I saw his white bone thrash his eyes' (The Lie of Dawns 46) the father might have sanctified the arrangement of offering his daughter as he would offer her in the act of a sanctified matrimonial arrangement. But his body could not comply with his mythic sanctity and the truth of his vulgarity thrashed through his eyes leaving his hunger vulnerable to the customer of his daughter.

The path that narrator follows the fisherman is depicted with the beauty of language where even the grains of sand accuse him of the forthcoming act, ‘I followed him across the sprawling sands’. The word ‘sprawling’ sing the abuse where the daughter might lie with her limbs spread out just like the sand does when the two men tread over it. ‘Hope lay perhaps in burning the house I lived in’, the only hope in the scenario comes with burning down the house, the metaphorical body that the customer resides in and thus ending the prospect of any hunger. But ‘silence’ grips him when he looks at the body of the fisherman that ‘clawed at the froth his old nets had only dragged up from the sea’. The froth that demarcates the hunger in absolute colloquial of the word, the mere froth of hunger and no fish to satiate that hunger left burning in the house.

The third stanza raises the act to the epitome of cruelty and vulgarity when even the poet stammers, ‘In the flickering dark his lean-to opened like a wound’ (The Lie of Dawns 46) the gates of the hunger stuck house are opened like a wound, a wound in the hunger stuck body. The following lines mark a tone of existentialism in the poet which brings across him not as an animal who would hunt to feed but a human who would self-analyze and ultimately give in to the hunger of his body and his passion. ‘In wind was I, and the days and nights before. Palm fronds scratched my skin’, at witnessing the opened wound, poet becomes a part of the wind and the days and nights that preceded the moment when the palm fronds scratched his skin, agonizing his hunger. Once inside the shack, Mahapatra describes the dimensions of mind and space using the absolute genius diction that set a tone to the act that is to follow. ‘an oil lamp splayed the hours…over and over the sticky soot crossed the space of my mind’ (The Lie of Dawns 46) the truth of time and space has merged with the metaphors of splay and sticky soot and has created an illusion of the act of satiation of hunger that might have occurred in the shack over and over again on the days and nights before. Here the poet shows:

            I heard him say: My daughter, she’s just turned fifteen…

                Feel her. I’ll be back soon, your bus leaves at nine.   (The Lie of Dawns 46)

The ellipses in the first line shake the truth and unveil it in its most ugly form. The daughter who has just turned fifteen is offered in exchange for satiation of hunger. Although the customer’s shock is expressed with the dialectic use of Hindi saying, ‘The sky fell on me’ but his act is then justified by the ‘exhausted wile’ of the father and he ultimately decides to proceed. ‘long and lean, her years were cold as rubber.’(The Lie of Dawns 46) the girl’s fifteen years of hunger only gifted her rubber cold life. ‘She opened her wormy legs wide’ is the only action that the girl undertakes but it conveys much more than is expressed. The manner of opening her legs give the act a kind of repetitive brilliance, like this act was not her first, she is accustomed at soliciting men like the narrator. ‘I felt the hunger there, the other one, the fish slithering, turning inside’, the final line gives words to the inherent tale of hunger, that of existence and of passion and both make men their slave, both demand satiation. The poem does not hide its motive under ornate metaphors but breaks the myth of father as the savior and mocks at the illusion of human goodness. The poem does not advocate the truth of suppressed women or establishes the myth of father’s protective haven for his daughter. It breaks through the shackles of a sophisticated society and bares the basic human hunger; the hunger that swallows all myth and illusions to satiate it, the only truth is uncovered.

Conclusion

Jayanta Mahapatra sculpts his poems with the precision of an artist and with the innocence of a soul that has lived on these experiences he depict. His poems and his experiences could best be stated in his words, in an interview Mahapatra said, a poet is a poet by virtue of what he or she sees or hears, and that itself begins the mystifying process of the poem’ (Ten Writers in Interview). He breaks apart from every convention to convey his mystic experience and thus his truth often germinates from the myths of his land and he often layers his myth with the truth of his experiences. By studying his language as myth and appreciating the metaphorical existence of his works, I tried to celebrate the free play of truth and illusion that his poems create. They offer something for everybody, they are the poems that germinate from the soil and the soul and they sure reach where they germinate from, thus completing its cyclic existence. Mahapatra is sure not easy to be read or to be deciphered but then that might be his exact motive. He frees the spirit of his work by wrapping them in a language that does not bind them in the strict cages of meanings and truth. His poems are not meant to be understood or be broken; they are the paintings that need to be appreciated by the aesthetic of art native to every soul. They sing of a melody that might hurt some or offend others, but they never fail to touch the tune of every soul that is exposed to his work. His poems hide tales within tales and only the eyes looking for breaking the fetters of intellectual knowledge may enjoy the nectar of his writings and get drunk on his sensibilities that evoke the worst of us to stare at us in our nudity and then move towards the better. He might not be sketching a myth or telling a truth but he is singing to the few who want to experience what he has experienced.  The discussion can be summed up with these lines from his Genesis:

            Maybe nothing came from anything,

                A long drawn-out yawn from nowhere. …

                The myth has its head stuck in the form of a tree.

                And the spirits of knowledge won’t let it pass.   (Mahapatra 17)

WORKS CITED

Bruce, King. Modern Indian poetry in English. New Delhi: Oxford, 2001. Print.

Cassirer, Ernest. The Philosophy of Symbolic Forms: Volume One: Language. Trans. Ralph Manheim. Virginia: Yale, 1980. Print.

Evans, Vyvyan. The Language Myth: Why language is not an instinct. United Kingdom: Cambridge, 2014. Print.

Ganguly, Suparna. “Reflection of Mystical Philosophy and Reflective Psychology in the Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra.” Galaxy 1.2 (2012): 1-8. Print.

Mahapatra, Jayanta. The Lie of Dawns. New Delhi: AuthorsPress, 2008. Print.

---. Poems. Poemhunter.com, 2012. Web. 15 Mar. 2018. < https://m.poemhunter.com/jayanta-mahapatra/poems/>

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. Of Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense: CreateSpace Independent, 2012. Print.

Rao, Raja. Ed. Ten Indian Writers in interview. Calcutta: Writers Workshop, 1991. Print.

Sharma, Priyanka. “Mahapatra’s Relationship and its Dimension.” Zenith 6.3 (2016): 60-66. Print.

Setu, April 2018