9. See my book A Various Universe: The Journals and Memoirs of British Men and Women in the Indian Subcontinent, 1765-1856 (Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 1978), pp. 19-26, where further references can be found.
10. Quoted in Michael Edwardes, British India, 1772-1947 (Sidgwick & Jackson, London, 1967), pp. 122-27.
11. Prabhatkumar Mukhopadhyay (editor), Gitabitan: Kalanukramik Suchi (vol. 1, Santiniketan, 1969; vol. 2, Tagore Research Institute, Calcutta, 1978).
12. Henry Yule & A.C. Burnell, Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive, first published in 1886; new edition, edited by William Crooke, 1903 (Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1969).
13. W.W. Hunter, A Statistical Account of Bengal (London, 1877), quoted in Ghulam Murshid, Rabindravisve Purbabanga Purbabange Rabindracharcha (Bangla Academy, Dhaka, 1981), p. 45.
14. Kim Taplin, Tongues in Trees: Studies in Literature and Ecology (Green Books, Bideford, Devon, 1989), p. 20.
15. The idea is developed in several of David Bohm’s books, including Wholeness and the Implicate Order, first published in 1980, known to me in a paperback edition (Ark Paperbacks, Routledge, London, 1988).
16. Prasantakumar Pal, Rabijibani, vol. 2 (Bhurjapatra, Calcutta, 1984), pp. 41-43, or vol. 2, 2nd edition, Ananda, Calcutta, 1990, pp. 11-14, 29-32.
17. Pal, op. cit., vol. 2, 1st edition, pp. 268-72, or 2nd edition, pp. 204-07.
18. Ketaki Kushari Dyson, Rabindranath o Victoria Ocampor Sandhane (Navana, Calcutta, 1985), pp. 318-36.
19. Rabindranath Tagore’s letter to his son Rathindranath, 19 Baishakh 1317, Chithipatra, vol. 2 (Visvabharati, 1942), pp. 9-10.
20. Rathindranath Tagore, On the Edges of Time, 2nd edition (Visvabharati, Calcutta, 1981), p. 21.
21. Rathindranath Tagore, Pitrismriti (Jijnasa, Calcutta, 2nd edition, 1387), p. 81.
22. For further details, see my study In Your Blossoming Flower-Garden.
[1991]
I WON’T LET YOU GO
FROM Sandhyasangit (1882)
The Suicide of a Star
From a luminous shore into an ocean of darkness
leaped a star
like a madwoman.
They stared at her, the innumerable stars,
astonished
that the speck of light, their erstwhile neighbour, could
vanish in an instant.
She’s gone
to the bottom of that ocean
where lie the corpses of
hundreds of dead stars,
whom anguish of mind has driven to suicide
and the eternal extinction of light.
O why? What was the matter with her?
Not once did anyone ask
why she abandoned her life!
But I know what she would have said in reply
had anyone posed the question.
I know what burned her
as long as she was alive.
It was the torment of laughter,
nothing else!
A burning lump of coal, to hide its dark heart,
maintains a continuous laughter.
The more it laughs, the more it burns.
So, even so did laughter’s
fierce fire
burn, burn her without end.
That’s why today she’s run off in sheer despair
from a brilliant solitude full of stars
to the starless solitude of darkness.
Why, stars, why do you
mock her and laugh like that?
You’ve not been harmed.
You shine as you did before.
She’d never meant
(she wasn’t that arrogant)
to darken you by quenching herself.
Drowned! A star has drowned
in the ocean of darkness –
in the deep midnight
in the abysmal sky.
Heart, my heart, do you wish
to sleep beside that dead star
in that ocean of darkness
in this deep midnight
in that abysmal sky?
[Calcutta, 1880?]
Invocation to Sorrow
Come, sorrow, come,
I’ve spread a seat for you.
Pull, rip out each blood-vessel from my heart,
place your thirsty lips on each split vein
and suck from my bloodstream drop by drop.
With a mother’s affection I shall nurture you.
My heart’s treasure, come you to my heart.
Within my heart’s nest cosily you may sleep.
Ah, how heavy you are!
A few of my veins may burst,
but what do I care?
With a mother’s affection I shall carry you
even on my feeble breast.
Sitting alone at home,
in a continuous drone
I shall sing lullabies in your ears,
until your weary eyes
are lulled to sleep.
My breath, drawn from my innermost recesses,
will fan your tired forehead;
you’ll sleep in peace.
Come, sorrow, come.
My heart’s full of such longing!
Press your hands on your mouth,
fall tumbling on my heart’s ground.
Like an orphaned child cry loudly within me once
till it echoes in all my heart.
In my heart of hearts there’s a musical instrument
that’s broken.
Pick it up with your hands,
play it with all your strength,
like a madman strum it twang twang.
Instrument and strings –
if they break, let them.
Never mind, pick it up,
play it with all your strength,
like a madman strum it twang twang.
Bruised by sharp sounds,
all the echoes, troubled,
will cry out in chorus
in pain.
Come, sorrow, please come.
Oh, how lonely this heart is!
Just do this, nothing else:
come close, lift my heart’s face,
set your eyes on it
and gaze.
This homeless heart
wants a companion –
that’s all.
You, sorrow, come, keep it company.
You may not wish to speak;
just sit without words
day and night by my heart’s side.
When you want to play,
you can play with it,
for my heart does need a playmate.
Come, sorrow, treasure of my heart.
Right here I’ve spread your seat.
Whatever little blood
is left in my heart of hearts,
all of that you may drain if you wish.
[Calcutta, autumn 1880 (Kartik 1287)?]
FROM Prabhatsangit (1883)
Endless Death
Loaded with millions and millions of minute deaths,
this globe careers in the sky.
Death laughs and plays around it.
A death-track is this earth.
It’s a world of death.
Should only the present be called life –
just an instant, a wink?
On its back sits the dead weight of the past –
who knows where that ends?
I’ve been dead as many years as I’ve lived
and every moment I’m dying.
Living deaths, we live in death’s own house,
ignorant of its meaning.
Life: is it then a name for a handful of deaths –
an aggregate of dyings?
Then a moment’s a cluster of a hundred trivial deaths –
so much fuss over a naming!
As death grows, so will life:
minute by minute we shall ascend the sky
/>
to the very dwelling of starlight.
As death grows, we shall walk far:
life’s scope will expand.
Within life’s vastness stars and planets will
frolic here and there.
My life will rise, traversing so many skies,
cover moons and suns,
gain new kingdoms as the ages pass,
netting the latest stars.
Oh, when will that day come
when I may ascend that skyey path
and tie with my death’s filament
one world and another!
Our death-mesh we shall spread
and enclose the world,
entirely encircle
this endless sea of sky.
Victory, victory to death!
Endless death is our lot.
Death will never die.
Little children of this century, we
seek your protection, death!
Come to us, take us in your arms,
give us your breast-milk
and all the nurturing we need.
We are filled with joy as we behold
death’s endless carnival.
Someone has invited us to this grand
and noisy party!
Child, don’t you know who calls you lovingly?
Why this fear?
Death’s just another name for what you call life,
not an alien at all.
Why then, come and embrace her!
Come and hold her hand!
[Calcutta? 1882?]
FROM Kadi o Komal (1886)
Breasts
No.2
Truly, we have the sacred Sumeru here,
that golden mountain, dalliance-land of gods.
The high breasts of this virtuous lady light
with rays of heaven the earth, man’s mortal lot.
From there the infant sun rises at dawn
and there in the evening, exhausted, he sinks.
At night a deity’s irises keep watch
on two secluded unpolluted peaks.
A nectar-flow from love’s perennial source
wets the thirsty lips of the universe.
Sustenance without end for a weakly world
for ever wakes on a serenely sleeping earth.
Man, the child of gods, has a motherland
which is on this very earth, but kisses heaven.
[1885?]
The Kiss
Lips’ language to lips’ ears.
Two drinking each other’s heart, it seems.
Two roving loves who have left home,
pilgrims to the confluence of lips.
Two waves rise by the law of love
to break and die on two sets of lips.
Two wild desires craving each other
meet at last at the body’s limits.
Love’s writing a song in dainty letters,
layers of kiss-calligraphy on lips.
Plucking flowers from two sets of lips
perhaps to thread them into a chain later.
This sweet union of lips
is the red marriage-bed of a pair of smiles.
[1885?]
FROM Manasi (1890)
Desire
A fast damp wind blows sharply from the east,
sweeping dark-blue clouds on the sunrise-path.
Far off, on the Ganga – not a boat! – the sand drifts.
I sit and wonder: who’s where today!
Withered leaves are blown on empty paths.
From a distance comes the woodland’s mad commotion.
The morning birds are silent. Their nests shake.
I think continually: where is she today?
Ah, how long she was near me, and I said nothing!
And the days went by, one after another.
Laughter and jokes, throwing words at each other:
within them lurked the heart’s intended hints.
If I could have her by me today, I feel
I could tell her all I wanted to say.
Clouds would cast dark shadows across my words
and the wind would lend its wildness to my breath.
From afar it would gather – the stillness before a storm.
Clouds, woods, riverbanks – all would merge into one.
Her loose hair would cascade over her face
and her eyes would hold back the dewy drops.
Speeches most solemn, covering life and death,
inner longing, like the forest’s uproar,
vital throbbing – from here to hereafter,
hymns of grandeur, high effusive hopes,
huge sadness-shadows, deep absence-pangs,
restless desires, locked up, heart-concealed,
half-formed whispers, not for elaboration,
would fill the solitude like clouds heaped on clouds.
As at the end of day, in midnight’s mansion
the universe displays its planets and stars,
so in my heart, freed from laughter and jests,
she would perceive infinity’s outburst.
The noise, the games, the merriment would be below;
the spirit’s tranquil sky would soar above.
In light you see but the gambolling of a moment;
in darkness alone am I myself without end.
How small I was when she left me and went away!
How small that farewell, spoken with trivial words!
I neither showed her imagination’s true realm,
nor made her sit in my soul’s dark solitude.
If in such privacy, stillness, grand ambience
two minds could spend an eternal night together –
in the sky no laughter, no sound, no sense of direction,
just four loving eyes waking like four stars!
No weariness, no satiety, no road-blocks:
life expanding from one world to the next!
From the strings of twin spirits in full unison
a duet would rise to the throne of the limitless.
[Ghazipur, 1 May 1888]
Death-dream
The night after full moon. Early in the evening
the pale moon rose in a corner of the sky.
The small boat, quivering, sped with a billowing sail,
as on time’s stream glides
an idle thought in a mind half-awake.
One bank, high and jagged, cast a shadow.
The other sloped and merged
with white sand, looking the same in moonlight.
Below the banks in lazy languor flowed
Ganga – slim, sluggish in Baishakh.
The wind blew from the east, my home’s direction,
like the sighing of distant relatives who missed me.
Before my waking eyes sometimes the moon,
sometimes a loved face drifted.
One half of me was wistful, the other half elated.
Dense orchards of mango appeared on the north bank.
They looked unreal, like remembered groves.
Bank, tree, hut, path – sketched on moonlight’s scroll –
and sky, reflected in water,
like the image of a far-off magical world.
Eyes shut, dream-immersed, I imagined
a swan gliding along the boundless sky:
upheaval of large white wings in moonlight,
myself stretched on its back, on a downy ride.
Sleep crept on me like a pleasurable death.
There were no hours, nor night-watchmen to call them.
Night without end, disconnected from day.
In the hushed, deserted world only the waves,
the murmuring waters softly lapped my ears –
sea of sleep dream-ruffled.
Ages passed – I couldn’t count how many.
Like a lamp without oil, the universe began to flutter.
A giant shadow swallowed the firmament,
and with head bo
wed, the universal night
began the countdown to death: three, two, one…
The moon began to wane, to disappear.
The liquid murmur faded, fell silent.
All the stars, unflinching, like ghosts’ eyes
without mercy fixed themselves on me,
the only creature in the entire heavens.
Through that long night the billions of stars
slowly went out, one after another.
I opened my eyes wide, but received no light.
Ice-hard, death-chill, that darkness
couldn’t pierce my irises.
Numbed, then, the bird-wings started to droop.
The long neck plunged. The swan began to descend.
For ten thousand years the deafening sound of a fall
struck my ear-drums. The horrendous
gaping night split into two.
Suddenly all the memories of my life
woke for a moment, and in a flash sped
ahead of me, crashing to a thousand pieces.
The hottest chase I gave them, but couldn’t retrieve
a particle from that debacle, alas.
Nowhere could I rest this body of mine,
wholly wearied by my own iron weight.
I wanted to cry, but found neither breath nor voice,
my throat choked by darkness:
solely within me it was happening – the cosmic collapse.
The fierce velocity made me long and thin
like the shrill whistle of a swift hurricane.
Sharp as an arrow, as fine as a needle’s tip,
piercing infinite time’s breast I went,