Thursday, August 26, 2010

Travelogue

The long march - the days brief and rushing,
O'er rough hewn rocks and craggy paths
Boulders standing large, with huge girths
Like sentries to prevent passing.

Oftentimes, sudden a rush of sounds
Of Tartars riding from their lair,
The sound of hooves diffused o'er air
Like morse code of death floating mid mounds.

Rain blow snow in day and night
Inured to all the storm and sleet
In biting cold, in scorching heat
Endless trudge from height to height.

But perhaps at journey's end there is verdure
And the torturing joy of the One to endure.


I reproduce below the whole poem with its metrical scheme, a / denoting a flick and _ denoting a stroke.
The red vertical line denotes the scansion of span.
The long march| - the days brief and rushing,
 /      _     _           /     _      _      /     _   /  ; 
O'er rough hewn rocks| and craggy paths
 /       _        _       _       /      _   /     _   ;  
Boulders standing large,| with huge girths
 _     /      _      /     _        /       _      _   ;
Like sentries| to prevent passing.
/       _    _     /   _    _    _    /    ;     I am not sure if the syllabic quantitiesof sentries is correct.
                                                     My calculations give a 3:5 quantity for the two syllables which would
                                                     mean both are flicks, the second at most a rover.
Oftentimes, sudden| a rush of sounds
 _       _         _      /   _      /     _   ;      A run of three stokes followed by two iambs.
Of Tartars riding| from their lair,
 /    _    /     _  /     _     /      _  ;    Amphibrach, trochee, _/_  ; the from hover is a stroke while their a flick.
                                                   If considered as four iambs then it disagrees with the span.     
The sound of hooves| diffused o'er air
 /      _       /      _        /    _      /     _  ; exactly as the line before.
Like morse code of death| floating mid mounds.
 _       _        _      /     _      _   /     /       _   ;   An extra trochee before the penultimate iamb when  compared
                                                                      to the first line. However the rythm sound right: not so without
                                                                      the extra trochee.
Rain blow snow| in day and night
_       _      _      /     _     /      _    ;    A run of three strokes followed by two iambs. Her there is absolutely
                                                        no crossdraw between span and metric feet.
Inured to all| the storm and sleet   
 /  _      /   _   /     _       /     _   ;     Four iambs; here too no crossdraw.
In biting cold,| in scorching heat
/   _  /      _      /   _        /    _    ; Four iambs with no crossdraw; agrees with the preceeding line.
Endless trudge from height to height.
 _     _     _         /         _    /    _   ;   Exact replica of the first line of the stanza.

But perhaps| at journey's end| there is verdure
 /     /    _       /    _     /      /      _     /    /   _   ;  Anapest, paeon, cretic agreeing with no crossdraw.
And the torturing joy| of the One| to endure.
  /      /    _  /   /     _    /   /    _      /   /    _   ;   Paeon, _ followed by two anapests. Though the
                                                                     sequence of flicks and strokes is the same yet the
                                                                     thought span does not not agree with the earlier line's feet.

I dedicate this poem to Bhombol Das.

Monday, August 23, 2010

An obituary

I did not know him personally, yet heard many anecdotes of him from his mother. They were very fond of him. He died a year or two after this photo was taken. Long afterwards, almost eight years later, his mother had a daughter born to her and it is she who sent this photograph to me. It was only last week that the sister - who never saw this particular elder brother, for he died long before she was born - sent me his photo, remembering him on his birthday. His birthday fell on the 18th of August. The year was 1972.

So I thought let me remember him too, and sit down to write a few lines about the little I know about him. He was born in Calcutta (the current name of this eastern city is Kolkata, after how the natives call it themselves, Calcutta being an Anglicised version of the name) but the father (incidentally the father is no more; he passed away last year) being posted in Asansol, the baby was taken to that town and he grew up there. There cannot be many incidents in a short life. He was put in a preparatory school called Ananda Marg - a beautiful name isn't it? - and when this photo was taken he was visiting the Himalayas with his parents and maternal grandfather.

The most interesting part is about his death. He had this disease all the time and it could not be detected clinically, so subtle it is. It is in fact a universal malady, and it spares no one, man or woman, rich or poor, and it affects the saint and the sinner equally. It is called Life. Our whole existence is afflicted with this disease called Life.
All living things are submerged in this sea of Life. It brings death every moment and we are not aware of it, just like our little boy was not aware of it. It is inescapable and unavoidable.

But how does this disease act and with what results? It is said by people who know, "Death has no reality except as a process of life." Equally life as we know it, in ourselves and in others, is nothing but a constant death. That is the truth of the matter. In our ordinary mentality the ideas we hold about life and death with all the consequent reactions of happiness or recoil are illusions of the mind. There is no separate name that can be given to this phenomenon; we cant separately call it life, neither can we call it death. Nor are there two separate entities one called life and the other death. It is one thing, one energy, irrespective of what we choose to call it.

How, then, does this one thing effect such vastly different results? For on the one hand we can imagine exuberant youth, boisterous childhood, energetic and lively growth - what we call the May of life - and on the other we are familiar with the picture of old age, of decadence, of wearing away, and finally of cessation that we call death. If it were just one principle and one uniform action without variance then why such widely disparate results?

The question is invalid because it it based on a false premise. More specifically, ours is a  false perception based on our mental samskaras or habits. There is an underlying principle which we must grasp with all our mind and heart in order to be able to cast off this veil of false perception. Point one: there is in fact only one principle of expansion that works everywhere in the universe. Point two: we are fundamentally disillusioned in thinking of this universe as a conglomeration of numberless separate entities - all is actually an inseparable and indivisible vast sea of Life. Just like we cannot assign any permanent existent value to particular waves in the ocean, so we cannot affirm our or our fellow beings' existence as separate from the whole. Just like each wave is an ephemeral and infinitesimal expression of the one existent ocean and the former has no separate law-of-existence-by-itself, so we are just waves of one sea of Life - now rising, reaching a crest, now falling and disappearing forever, but leaving the ocean unchanged. If Mr A thinks very highly of himself as a separate and distinct individual then there is only a superficial (a phenomenal) truth in his contention but the reality, in spite of the great individuality of Mr A, asserts itself otherwise with obvious results: he ages and he dies.

So what is this principle of expansion by which the universal Life functions? It is simply that: an instinct, an impulse to grow, spread, expand, increase. However the conditions under which it does so are unfortunate. There is no harmony and self-giving in the universe yet as the process of this expansion, rather all the opposites - devouring, strife, clash. Individual waves of life clashing and devouring to increase and expand themselves. So naturally there will be victims if there are to be victors! The rule of mutual help and growth is still an unknown or foreign principle and its vistas have not yet opened up in this tumultuous sea.

Even in temporary victorious growth it loses its permanence: for it mutates to something that was not what it was before. All growth as well as decadence is a mutation, a death of the original. Mr A at sixty may look upon Mr A at forty as himself but that would be a samskara and an invalid supposition with no reality to support it. In fact in this great hunger of life, in this immense battleground of mutual devouring he has mutated to something that has no correspondence with his former self. His body has become entirely different: there is not one original cell of a past Mr A in his current body, his life has changed irrevocably, his mind has changed too. A thread perhaps links him to the past, and that thread is memory, but we cannot on that ground say that the past has survived. For then Mr A's mother would remember more of Mr A's childhood than Mr A himself and certainly by that dint she has also a claim to be Mr A!

Even outwardly we see the same devouring action of life. I eat everyday - whether meat or grain - and it is in fact a devouring of another life to grow my own. In wild animals we see this same behaviour. Other realms of life are not so obvious but they exist and their oceans are bigger than this physical earth's. For instance, when I speak with someone face-to-face or over phone, or even communicate by letters, there is always and invariably an interchange. Even without such obvious contacts, the fact is that each one of us is always and unceasingly in a state of exchange with the vast ocean of Life of which we are a part. The yogis are aware of this just as we are aware of out physical world and to communicate they use this ether of life. The guru may help his disciple puissantly without the latter knowing of the action but he would feel the results nonetheless!

I am sorry to have digressed from my original intention of writing an obituary. Coming back to this boy who died,  I admit I feel sorry for him. Just as I feel sorry for myself too. How nice would it have been if no one died. Each could maintain himself and grow by mutual help! Alas that is not yet to be.
Incidentally, this boy's name was also Tirthankar Ghosh.

My first rudimentary observations of poetic style


There were times in my life when I took up pen and paper inspired by my father’s example, who at a certain stage of his life used to write poetry regularly, and sat down to write a few verses. They never came. It seemed the Muse was not disposed kindly towards me. Consequently I gave up.

Much later I came to know through my readings that to create poetry worth the name one has to be visited by inspiration. The urge must be pregnant with a poetic vision. Poetry cannot be born out of a passing mental wish of writing one. It is not something that can be produced to order.

However, over the last few years, I have, for the first time in my life, grown some appreciation for poetry. Before this, I got at the meaning of a poem with difficulty, but the enjoyment of it always eluded me. Now, after reading certain poems or parts thereof, I can feel a thrill. This proves that the real appreciation is growing.  

So I decided to peer closer at the techniques of poetry with the intention of both appreciating and also writing a few lines of my own!

Here are certain general features of poems  that struck me as markedly different from prose.

Rule 1.  Rule of Colour
An unreined use of adjectives that would be considered incompatible in prose writing. 
Eg.    Prose:  colour is associated with material things and light.
         Poetry: colour associated with just anything at all, even psychological  attributes!
         Eg. Golden peace; red anger; violet ecstasy etc.

Rule 2. Assigning human attributes to inanimate nature
A thumb rule is to imagine every inanimate object as a living being with a personality. Consequently one may assign certain verbs to inanimate things.
         Eg. laughter of flowers; breath of flowers; sprint of wind across meadows, etc.

Rule 3. Shortening of words
        Eg. Amid  to  mid;  Awakens   to  awake, etc.
Also modifications of words, like
        You  becomes  thee / ye;  has becomes  hast; does becomes dost; there becomes yon;  are becomes art; morning becomes morn, etc. Similarly liveth, waketh, doeth, etc.

Rule 4. Imaginative adjectives
      Eg. Fresh childhood; ancient joys; eremite silence; earthly hour; lonely flute, etc.

Rule 5. Prepositions out the window
Grammar must take the back seat. Also prepositions must be done away with as much as possible, and even where impossible! Eg. He speak

Rule 6. Subject predicate interchange
Prose: Cannot spoil the sweet meaning
Verse: Cannot the sweet meaning spoil

Rule 7. Use of images
A vigorous use of images peppering the whole body of the poem should enhance the beauty of it. They are stand alone components which, with a little skill and with a little indulgence, can be introduced anywhere in the middle.


Sunday, August 22, 2010

To Manojit Bhattacharya, with love

Muse, O Muse, hearken and lend me thy strongest wings!
As I set out his glorious 'n' kindly life to sing.
Not ornery, nor small, but a heaven-invading stature is his,
Over-n-high his nature soars like the planes of his office.
Joyfully he bore the sharp smites of life
In the tender ages before he took to a wife.
Took care of his brother as a tiger its cub,
Bravely shielding him from every blow and snub.
Halcyon days came dancing and blessed him a scion,
A father's love and a mother's care has now made him a lion.
Treading over far lands and away from home's cover
Tirelessly working he trots the globe over.
As life's bright sun crossed the high noon
Computer cometh to the pater as a boon;
Held and holed up near machine and its traps:
Adobe Photoshop and all the killer apps!
Reveller of life, and yet through it all
Yearns for the Spirit and strains for its call;
And this ends the acrostic - my one gambol.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Bathers at Asniers

It is difficult to say why Georges-Pierre Seurat was taken up  with the idea of points. We can only guess that it was an obsessive inspiration that compelled him to study the works of contemporary scientists on this subject before applying them painstakingly in his paintings. It was perhaps one of those stray threads in Nature's immense evolutionary gossamer that she did not bother to tie up in the end and left dangling: for that particular genre did not have any lasting effect in the field of art except to make Seurat known, and to gift to the art-loving world the La Grande Jatte.

The La Grande Jatte may be his most famous work, but I like his Bathers at Asniers best. The painting powerfully transports the viewer to an experience of the white heat of an afternoon that has put the earth as if into a trance. That trance is not broken, but rather strangely intensified, by the cooing of the boy in the water. Looking long at it sends one into a reverie...



La Grande Jatte: it took Seurat two whole years to complete
I cant say, not being an art critic, why La Grande Jatte is considered to be a masterpiece. Two generations of critics and art-lovers must have had their valid reasons for it. However it seems to me that to approach art with a scientific mind is to land up with a blend that serves neither supremely. Then, as in Seurat, the technique becomes all important pushing the inspiration and the idea to the backburner. Then the work loses beauty at the cost of technical accomplishment.
 

Let me quote Sri Aurobindo in this matter:
" There have been periods of artistic creation, ages of reason, in which the rational and intellectual tendency has prevailed in poetry and art;... At their best these periods have achieved work of a certain greatness, but predominantly of an intellectual greatness and perfection of technique rather than achievements of a supreme inspired and revealing beauty."

Then he goes on to say: "But great art is not satisfied with representing the intellectual truth of things, which is always their superficial or exterior truth; it seeks for a deeper and original truth which escapes the eye of the mere sense or the mere reason, the soul in them, the unseen reality which is not that of their form and process but of their spirit."

Sometimes a too much obsession with technique can render the art work into "a cold and mechanical workmanship" and "it ceases to be art". However, the Bathers, my favourite, can be exculpated from this defect as it is from a pre-pointillism era of Seurat's life, a painting done when he was twenty-four. It was created with the same kind of brush strokes that other artists use. There were complicated techniques even in that, like the balaye, among others, but it was a normal oil-on-canvas painting above everything else. The touchstone of its excellence is that it can convey the viewer to a long bygone summer's day with all its concomitant mesmerising timelessness.


Or is it the painting that has such power, and not something or someone else in the viewer that remembers? Who can say?...