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<title>-010_Two Mystic Poems in Modern Bengali.htm</title>
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<b> TWO MYSTIC POEMS IN MODERN BENGALI
</b>
</p>
<p class="paracenter"></p>
<p class="para"> 
Here is the first one as I translate it:
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> 
Baritone<sup>1</sup>
</p>
<blockquote>
	<p class="para">Let us all move together, one and all, 
	</p>
	<p class="para">Together into the cavern of the ribs, 
	</p>
	<p class="para">Raise there a song of discordant sounds— 
	</p>
	<p class="para">Red and blue and white, kin or alien.
	</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="para">
<img alt="1-79%20-%200074-1.png" border="0" src="/Nolini/Seer Poets/_images/1-79%20-%200074-1.png" width="473" height="466"></p>
<p class="paracenter">
Page-70</p>
<hr>
<br>
<p class="para"> 
Listen, the groan plays on: </p>
<p class="para"> 
Dreams as if possessed </p>
<p class="para"> 
Swing, like bats on branches; </p>
<p class="para"> 
Is now the time for the dance? </p>
<p class="para"> 
Come, let us all move together, one and all. </p>
<br>
<blockquote>
	<p class="para">Let the streams meet in the body, one and all, 
	</p>
	<p class="para">Yes, let the bones brighten up 
still more; </p>
	<p class="para">Let us all go around the fire
	</p>
	<p class="para">And scrape and eat of the very Liver, the Muse's self-</p>
	<p class="para">Let us go, let us go, one 
and all. </p>
</blockquote>
<p class="para"> 
Dipak Majumdar
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> 
Can you make any sense out of it ? This seems to be surrealistic with a 
vengeance. Anyhow there is no doubt that it is a puzzle, a veritable Chinese 
puzzle. The puzzle however appeared to me interesting. I felt that the poet, 
through this cryptic—<i>mantric</i>
—collocation of words and images, 
attempted to give expression to an uncommon experience. It was as though I 
entered into a Tantric experience-but of the left-handed path <i>
(v&#257;m&#257;c&#257;</i><i>ra)</i>.</p>
<br>
<p class="para">
There is a Tantric discipline which speaks of the 
bodyfulfilment
<i>(k&#257;y&#257;</i><i>siddhi)</i>,
a spiritual consummation in 
and through the body; the body-consciousness, according to this view, is the 
greatest reality. And whatever is achieved must have its final and definitive 
expression and manifestation there, in that concrete reality. </p>
<br>
<p class="para">
The body, the body-consciousness, 
our poet says here, is to be a confluence, where 
all 
the streams of consciousness,</p>
<br><p class="para">
Page-71</p>
<hr>
<br>
<p class="para">all the movements of the being, flow in: movements of life-force, 
movements of the mind, secret urges of the subliminal physical 
consciousness—pure and impure, things foreign to its nature, things that are its 
own, elements friendly and unfriendly, all assemble in a marketplace, as it 
were, the result being a huge horrid discordant music, a groaning, a bellowing 
of a queer orchestra—the bass, the lowest note of the system that the human 
vehicle is.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> 
There is a call for all the parts of the being to precipitate to the very 
foundation of the being, coalesce and evoke a wild and weird, doleful and 
discordant symphony—a painful cry. Unrealised dreams, that had faded into 
oblivion, are now like possessed beings and hang like bats on darkling branches: 
they are about to begin their phantom dance. Even so, the body, the material 
precipitate into which they gather, gives them a basic unity. These elements 
with their ardour and zeal kindle a common Fire. There is a divine Flame, Agni, 
burning within the flesh, burning brighter and brighter, making the bones whiter 
and whiter, as it were—the purificatory Flame, <i>p</i>&#257;<i>vaka, </i>
of which the Vedic Rishis spoke, 
Master of the House, <i>
g&#7771;</i><i>hapati</i>,
dwelling in the inner heart 
of the human being, impelling it to rise to purer and larger Truth. But here our 
modem poet replaces the Heart by the Liver and makes of this organ the central 
altar of human aspiration and inspiration. We may remember in this connection 
that the French poet Baudelaire gave a similar high position and —function—to 
the other collateral organ, the spleen. The modem Bengali poet considers that 
man's</p>
<br><p class="para">
Page-72</p>
<hr>
<br>
<p class="para">consciousness, even his poetic inspiration, is soaked in the secretion of that 
bilious organ. For man's destiny here upon earth is not delight but grief, not 
sweetness but gall and bitterness; there is no consolation, no satisfaction 
here; there is only thirst, no generosity but narrowness, no consideration for 
others, but a huge sinister egoism.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> 
The cry of our poet is a cry literally <i>de profundis, </i>
a deep cavernous voice surging, 
spectral and yet sirenlike, out of the unfathomed underground abysses.</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> 
The cry has nothing in it, very evidently, like the thrill of a skylark's 
throat.
</p>
<br>
<p class="para"> 
Something of the purer atmosphere of the heights and heavens we breathe in our 
second poem. We move no more here in the darker left-handed labyrinthine path, 
but swim in a lighter clearer air through which passes the right-handed path. 
Here it is in its serene simplicity:
</p>
<br>
<p class="paracenter">
<b>I Embark<sup>1</sup>
</b>
</p>
<br>
<p class="paracenter">Trampling my own shadow
</p>
<p class="paracenter">on a long, long path I came
</p>
<p class="paracenter">And saw a river of gladness. 
</p>
<p class="paracenter">I pushed the bank with my left foot
</p>
<p class="paracenter">And with my 
right landed in the boat.
</p>
<p class="paracenter"></p>
<p class="paracenter">
<img alt="seer1-108as%20-%200077-1.png" border="0" src="/Nolini/Seer Poets/_images/seer1-108as%20-%200077-1.png" width="546" height="144" align="left"></p>
<p class="paracenter"></p>
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<p class="paracenter"></p>
<p class="paracenter"></p>
<br><p class="para">
Page-73</p>
<hr>
<br>
<blockquote>
	<p class="para">Here a straw canopy over the head, 
	</p>
	<p class="para">A wooden floor to sit upon, 
	</p>
	<p class="para">A sure helm and 
an oar within reach </p>
	<p class="para">And a sail to unfurl in the sky: 
	</p>
</blockquote>
<p class="para">All were there—
</p>
<blockquote>
	<p class="para">A whole lungful of breath
	</p>
	<p class="para">Grew into a flight of white pigeons
	</p>
	<p class="para">That found the 
sky. </p>
</blockquote>
<p class="para">Purnendu Prasad
</p>
<br>
<p class="para">
<i>Kasmai dev</i>&#257;<i>ya kavi</i>&#7779;&#257;<i> vidhema? </i>To which god then shall we 
dedicate our offering?
</p>
<br>
<p class="para">
<img alt="1-79 - 0078-1.png" src="/Nolini/Seer Poets/_images/1-79 - 0078-1.png" style=" width:543px; height:328px;"
<br></p>
<p class="para">
Page-74</p>
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