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<font size="4">Two 
Mystic Poems in Modern Bengali</font></b></p>
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<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-bottom: 0; line-height: 150%; margin-top:0"><FONT SIZE=3>Here
is the first one as I translate it:</FONT></P>
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<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="margin-bottom: 0; line-height: 150%; margin-top:0"><FONT SIZE=3><B>BARITONE<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">¹</FONT></B></FONT></P>
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</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Let us all move together, one and all,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Together into the cavern of the ribs,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Raise there a song of discordant sounds <I>
<font face="Times New Roman">–</font>
</I></FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Red and blue and white, kin or alien.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Listen, the groan plays on:</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Dreams as if possessed</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Swing, like bats on branches;</FONT></P>
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<BR>
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<span style="font-size:10pt;">Page - 212</span></P>
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<P ALIGN=JUSTIFY STYLE="margin-bottom: 0; line-height: 150%; margin-top:0"><FONT SIZE=3>Is
now the time for the dance?</FONT></P>
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let us all move together, one and all.</FONT></P>
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</P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0; line-height: 150%; margin-top:0"><FONT SIZE=3>Let
the streams meet in the body, one -and all,</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0; line-height: 150%; margin-top:0"><FONT SIZE=3>Yes,
let the bones brighten up still more;</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0; line-height: 150%; margin-top:0"><FONT SIZE=3>Let
us all go around the fire</FONT></P>
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scrape and eat of the very Liver, the Muse's self <I>
<font face="Times New Roman">–</font>
</I></FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=LEFT STYLE="margin-bottom: 0; line-height: 150%; margin-top:0"><FONT SIZE=3>Let
us go, let us go, one and all.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>DIP AK MAJUMDAR</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>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 <I>cryptic&nbsp; –&nbsp; mantric&nbsp; 
–&nbsp; collocation </I>of words and images, attempted to
give expression to an uncommon experience. It was as though I entered
into a Tantric experience <I>&nbsp;–&nbsp; </I>but of the left-handed path
<I>(v<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">a</FONT>m<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">a</FONT>c<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">a</FONT>ra).</I></FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>There is a Tantric discipline which speaks of the
<I>body-fulfilment (k<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">a</FONT>y<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">a</FONT>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.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>The body, the body-consciousness, our poet says here, is
to be a confluence, where all the streams of consciousness, all the
movements of the being, flow in: movements of life-force, movements
of the mind, secret 1.1.rges of the subliminal physical consciousness
<I>&nbsp;–&nbsp; </I>pure and impure, things foreign to its nature, things
that are its own, elements friendly and unfriendly, all assemble in a
market-place, as it were, the result being a huge horrid discordant
music, a groaning, a bellowing of a queer orchestra <I>&nbsp;–&nbsp; </I>the
bass, the lowest note of the system that the human vehicle is.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>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 <I>&nbsp;–&nbsp; </I>a
painful cry. Unrealised dreams, that had faded into oblivion, are now
like possessed beings and hang like bats on darkling branches:</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=2>Page - 213</FONT><BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>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 <I>&nbsp;–&nbsp; </I>the purificatory Flame, <I>P<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">a</FONT>vaka,
</I>of which the Vedic Rishis spoke, Master of the House, <I>grhapati,
</I>dwelling in the inner heart of the human being, impelling it to
rise to purer and larger Truth. But here our modern 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 <I>&nbsp;–&nbsp;
</I>and function <I>&nbsp;– </I> &nbsp;to the other collateral organ, the
spleen. The modern Bengali poet considers that man's 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.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>The cry of our poet is a cry literally <I>de prifundis,
</I>a deep cavernous voice surging, spectral and yet sirenlike, out
of the unfathomed underground abysses.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>The cry has nothing in it, very evidently, like the
thrill of a skylark's throat.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>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:</FONT></P>
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<BR>
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<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="margin-bottom: 0; line-height: 150%; margin-top:0"><FONT SIZE=3><B>I
EMBARK<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">¹</FONT></B></FONT></P>
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</P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="margin-bottom: 0; line-height: 150%; margin-top:0"><FONT SIZE=3>Trampling
my own shadow</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="margin-bottom: 0; line-height: 150%; margin-top:0"><FONT SIZE=3>	on
a long, long path I came</FONT></P>
<P ALIGN=CENTER STYLE="margin-bottom: 0; line-height: 150%; margin-top:0"><FONT SIZE=3>And
saw a river of gladness.</FONT></P>
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</P>
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<img border="0" src="/Nolini/Volume-2/_Gif_Image/Bengali%20poem%20-%201.jpg" width="450" height="84"><BR>
</P>
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  <FONT face="Times New Roman,sans-serif"><span style="font-size:10pt;">Page
- 214</span></FONT><BR>
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&nbsp;</P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>I pushed the bank with my left foot</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>And with my right landed in the boat.</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Here a straw canopy over the head,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>A wooden floor to sit upon,</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>A sure helm and an oar within reach</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>And a sail to unfurl in the sky:</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>All were there<I> – </I></FONT></P>
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<BR>
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<FONT SIZE=3>A whole lungful of breath</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>Grew into a flight of white pigeons</FONT></P>
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<FONT SIZE=3>That found the sky.</FONT></P>
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<FONT FACE="Courier New, monospace" SIZE="3">PURNENDU
PRASAD</FONT></P>
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<img border="0" src="/Nolini/Volume-2/_Gif_Image/Bengali%20poem%20-%202.jpg" width="600" height="257"></P>
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  <FONT SIZE=3><I>Kasmai
dev<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">a</FONT>ya havis<FONT FACE="Luxi Serif">a</FONT>
 vidhema? </I>To which god then shall we dedicate our offering?</FONT></P>
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<BR>
<span style="font-size:10pt;">Page - 215</span> </P>
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<a href="-00_Ccontent"><img src="/Nolini/Volume-2/_Gif_Image/home03a.gif" width="40" height="52" border="0"></a></p>
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