‘Whatever you say, you can’t deny that the Creator is male.’
‘His masculinity could no longer be suppressed. The nostrils of his two bearded faces flared out like a pair of bellows. A storm cloud rushed scolding out of them to the four corners of the sky. That was when discord, with all its terrible force, was first released into the universe—roaring, thumping, grinding. The gandharvas shouldered their tanpuras and fled in hordes to Lord Indra’s courtyard, where Sachidevi88 retires after her bath to dry her hair in the fumes of parijat-scented89 incense amidst the shade of a mandar90 grove. The Earth-Goddess was sure she had made a horrible mistake: she trembled in fear as she recited the mantra to invoke beneficence. The erratic force of that storm of discord threw out male humans like fiery cannon balls.—You’re very quiet, Dada. I hope my words are hitting you.’
‘You may be sure they are. With loud thuds, too.’
‘I hope you’ve understood that the crucial period of creation was ruled over by discord.’
‘Do explain it to me.’
‘The calm sovereignty of rippling water was overthrown— butted, elbowed, kicked, punched and pushed, as land reared its stony bald head. Wouldn’t you agree that was the most important episode in the history of the earth?’
‘I certainly would.’
‘After all this time, the Creator’s maleness had found expression in land; the seal of masculinity had been set upon the soil. What fearsome strength there was from the very start! Now stirring up flames, now freezing over with ice, sometimes splitting the ground open with the force of an earthquake and making it swallow down mountains as if they were doctors’ pills—you’d admit there was nothing womanish in all that.’
‘I certainly would.’
‘The water broke into babbling waves, the wind whistled madly—but when the distressed land began to call, the sage Bharata’s treatise on music91 was squashed into a lump.—But you look as if you don’t like this. What’s bothering you?’
I said, ‘All art is built upon an ancient foundation called tradition. Can you prove this art of tunelessness traditional?’
‘Of course I can. The root of traditional tunefulness lies in a she-god’s veena.92 If you want to trace the origin of discord, walk straight past the ancient stronghold of women and pause at the he-god Shiva’s threshold. At Kailash where he lives, the veena is prohibited, and Urvashi93 is never called in to dance. Shiva himself dances there—his furious dance of destruction, all out of time; his attendants Nandi and Bhringi blow horns, while the lord himself puffs out his cheeks and drums upon them with his fingers, or shakes his great rattle. Lumps of stone keep crashing down from Kailash’s walls. I hope the ancient origin of grand disharmony is clear to you now.’
‘It is.’
‘Remember that the story of Daksha’s Sacrifice in the Puranas,94 where Shiva brings confusion to King Daksha’s great ritual feast, centres upon the victory of discord over melody. All the gods and goddesses had once assembled at a banquet— rings in their ears, bracelets on their arms, jewels round their necks. The light danced off the forms of hermits and sages. Their voices rose in a hymn of faultless harmony. The whole universe thrilled to their song. All of a sudden, the tuneless brigade of everything ugly and hostile landed upon them, to the ruin of all the sweetness of this pious gathering. The victory of the hideous over the beautiful, the discordant over the melodious—the Puranas celebrate this principle with laughter and rejoicing, as you will notice if you leaf through the Annadamangal.95 There you have it—the tradition of tunelessness, confirmed by the scriptures. Why, don’t you see how eagerly everyone worships pot-bellied Ganesh? It’s a stout protest against the beguiling gracefulness of art. Today, Ganesh’s trunk has taken on the shape of a chimney and is trumpeting over the temples of manufacture in the West. Isn’t it the loud tunelessness of that song that’s bringing his devotees success? Think it over.’
‘I will.’
‘When you do, think over this as well—the invincible greatness of discord asserts itself on the hard soil. Lions, tigers, bulls—all those admirable creatures with whom heroes are compared—none of them ever practised the scales with an ustad. Any doubt of it?’
‘None at all.’
‘Even a humbler animal like the donkey, however weak, never professed intimacy with the veena-bearing goddess of musical circles96 —a fact both friend and foe will readily admit.’
‘That they will.’
‘The horse has been tamed. Although its hooves are ideally suited to kick with, it suffers whipping without protest: it should have reared up on its hind legs in its stable and sung an alaap97 in the Jhinjhitkhambaj raga. Its whinny might be a shower of foaming chandrabindus,98 but in the discord of its nasal tones, it doesn’t forget to uphold the dignity of the land. And the elephant—we needn’t even speak of him. All these land animals, disciples of Pashupati99 —can you find a single songster among them? Your bulldog Freddy, who keeps the whole neighbourhood awake with his barking—if God, in jest or compassion, gave him the voice of a magpie-robin or shama bird, I’ll bet he’d throw himself under the wheels of your motorcar, unable to stand the mockery of his sweet voice. Be honest: if a goat about to be sacrificed at Kalighat100 sang a Ramkeli raga instead of bleating in fright, wouldn’t you shoo it away disgustedly from the mother-goddess’s sacred temple?’
‘Of course I would.’
‘Then you understand the import of the great vow we’ve taken. We’re the devoted sons of firm land—we’ve received the sacrament of tunelessness. The world’s already half dead; we intend to revive it with quackery. We need an awakening; we need strength! The movement’s already started in the neighbourhood. The residents’ vigour is growing more and more indomitable, issuing forth in biffs and thuds—my followers bear the proof on their backs. The guardians of the British Empire have bestirred themselves; the authorities are on the alert.’
‘What does your Guru say to all this?’
‘He’s in a trance of rapture. His prophetic vision has shown him the coming of the worldwide renaissance of discord. All civilized races are saying today that discord is reality, bursting with maleness. Effeminate melody is what has weakened civilization. What we need is not Christian meekness but force. Discord is a rising power even in state legislation. Hasn’t it struck your eye, Dada?’
‘Why should it need to strike my eye, brother? It’s striking my back, and hard too.’
‘Meanwhile the twenty-five spooks of the old tale101 have mounted literature’s back. Rejoice—Bengal’s following in their train.’
‘Bengal’s never hesitated to follow in anyone’s train.’
‘On the other hand, we’ve obeyed our Guru’s order to cultivate tunelessness by establishing a club, the Hoi! Hoi! Polloi. A poet has joined the ranks—his appearance inspired us to hope he was the New Age incarnate. His poems corrected our mistake: he’s one of your lot after all. We’ve told him a thousand times, “Beat out the backbone of your verses with a club.” “Reflect constantly that all sense is but nonesense.”102 We explained to him, “Respect for the meaning of words shows a slavish bent of mind.” No results. It’s not the poor chap’s fault; he breaks out in a sweat, but just can’t break out of that gentlemanly cut of his poetry. We’re keeping him on trial. I’ll read you the first sample of his skills that he showed us. But I can’t sing it.’
‘That’s why I venture to let you into my room.’
‘Then pay attention:
Man of music, leave your dwelling,
Run, instead, to distant reaches.
Flee from our impassioned yelling,
From our grunts and shrieks and screeches.
God and fiend have met to squabble
Over how the scales are sung:
The purest notes begin to wobble,
Bursting forth from every lung.
Sudden split in single raga,
Strings go snap! and rhythms swerve:
All day passes in this saga,
Beat
s thumped out with reckless verve.
‘Our committee was up in arms: “This won’t do. He’s still faithful to the conventions of his caste—weak pulse, compulsive cleanliness. What we want is a reckless disregard for metre and rhythm.” We gave the poet some more time, and told him, “Gird up your loins, and plunge into the fray one more time. Hammer the message of power into the ears of Bengal’s youth. Remember— all over the world today, it is power that’s pushing on relentlessly. Is Bengal to stay asleep?” I realized the poet’s insides were churning. “Never, never!” he exclaimed. Chewing furiously on his pen, he rushed to the table. With folded hands, he implored elephant-headed Ganesh, “Send away your bride the banana tree.103 O giver of boons! Toss my brains with your trunk; let an earthquake attack my mother tongue; let a turbid force erupt from my pen; let the sons of Bengal wake to its harsh discordance!” Fifteen minutes later, the poet burst out of his room and began to recite in a yell. His face was flushed, his hair in disarray—you should have seen him.
Shout aloud the battle cry,
Let your kicks and punches fly.
Fierce Mar-hatta,104 quickly come,
Plunge into this bloody scrum.
From this fight no stalwart spare,
Pull them out from every lair.
Rain down cuffs and blows and knocks,
Bring your brickbats, stones and rocks,
Smash your noses and your pates,
Send your bones all to their fates.
With your biffs and thuds and screams
Rouse the sleepers from their dreams,
Let them too, with angry yell,
Fall on you and pound you well.
Hush the singing of the flute:
From the soil we must uproot
With cruel wrench that gentle flower,
Pride of Bengal’s native bower,
And in our gardens, give its place
To jungle-creeper’s sterner race.
‘I threw up my hands in despair. “Stop, stop! Jayadeva’s105 spirits are still perched on your shoulders, conducting a circus of rhyme and rhythm, controlling your poetic ear. If you want to offer that poem to your dead ancestors at Gaya,106 I’d advise you to grind it up with mortar and pestle, tear it, gnaw it, mortify it as much as you can, then spatter it with dots.”
‘The poet folded his hands and said, “I’m not equal to it— you take over.”
‘I said, “I see a faint glimmer of hope in your use of the word ‘Mar-hatta’. But you’ve just yanked it out of the dictionary. The root of its meaning still lies buried—only the shoots of warlike sounds pierce through the soil. I’ll throw it into disarray—note the shape that emerges.
Tally-ho Mar-hatta brave!
Mutton-chop whiskers,
Defiant of the smoothest shave.
Orchestra of grinding bones
Squeak, squeak, screech.
Rumble, rumble, rumble.
Biff, bang, thud.
Cudgel
Crash
Out cold
Compound fracture.
Bang.
Rumble tumble.
Deukinandan.
Jhanjhan Pandey.
Kundan the carter.
Banke Bihari.
Rattle-bang clip-clop.
Knock-knock flip-flop.
Bump bump.
Muffle scuffle.
Ho ho hoo hoo ha ha
P q r s t u v w x—
Inferno Hades limbo.’
‘Dada, I haven’t forged your work—that you’ll have to certify.’
‘With pleasure.’
‘You’ll have to write the new epic of the New Age, Dada.’
‘If I can. What’s the subject?’
‘The untuneful ogress Hirimba’s Conquest of the World.’
I asked Pupu-didi how she liked it.
‘Rather confusing,’ she answered.
‘In what sense?’
‘In the sense that I’m still wondering why I’m not disgusted by the victory of the demons over the gods. I feel strongly inclined to cast my vote in favour of those stubborn brutes.’
‘That’s because you’re a woman. Oppression still fascinates you. You’re charmed by the strength of the person who beats you.’
‘Well, I can’t say I like to be violently attacked—but when maleness assumes its most terrible form, fist upraised, it seems sublime.’
‘Let me tell you what I think. Manliness doesn’t lie in a tyrannical flaunting of power—quite the contrary. To this day, it’s been man that’s created beauty and fought with the discordant. Evil pretends to be powerful only to the extent that man is cowardly. I find constant proof of this in the world today.’
* * *
73gandharva maestros: heavenly singers, who sang before the gods.
74taans: long strings of notes sung or played as embellishments to classical compositions.
75tanpura: a stringed instrument used to accompany songs or other instruments.
76apsara: celestial dancer.
77Saturn: the planet Saturn (Shani in Bengali) is believed to cast a baleful influence upon the earth.
78last degenerate age: Kaliyug, the last and worst of the four mythical ages into which human history is divided in Indian mythology.
79Lord Brahma the Four-Faced: According to myth, Lord Brahma had five faces, one of which was burnt off by Shiva.
80re, ni: notes on the Indian musical scale, corresponding to re and ti on the Western.
81Lord Varuna: the Hindu god of water and the ocean.
82Grandfather God: refers to Lord Brahma.
83 This image recalls the way the goddess Lakshmi is represented.
84his swan: All the gods and goddesses in the Hindu pantheon have animals for mounts; Brahma’s is the swan.
85Brahmaic aeon: an immense tract of time. 4,320,000,000 human years constitute a single day for Brahma.
86the Maker of Laws: Brahma, referred to in the original as ‘bidhi’ or ‘the maker of laws’.
87Durga’s lion, Shiva’s bull: In Hindu myth, the lion is Durga’s mount and the bull is Shiva’s.
88Sachidevi: Indra’s wife.
89parijat: a celestial flower.
90mandar: a celestial plant.
91sage Bharata’s treatise on music: the ancient sage, Bharata, composed the Natyashastra, which is regarded as the foundation of Indian classical music, drama and dance.
92veena: a stringed instrument.
93Urvashi: the most famous of the apsaras or celestial dancers. Rabindranath wrote a famous lyric poem addressed to Urvashi.
94Daksha’s Sacrifice in the Puranas: The god Daksha arranged a great sacrificial rite to which Shiva and his wife Sati (Daksha’s daughter) were not invited. Sati went to her father’s home uninvited, and put an end to her own life when he began to abuse her husband. Hearing of his wife’s death, Shiva had the feast destroyed and Daksha killed.
95 Annadamangal: a poem by the eighteenth-century poet Bharatchandra Ray in praise of the goddess Annada, an aspect of Durga.
96veena-bearing goddess of musical circles: Saraswati, goddess of learning and music, who plays the veena and is therefore also called Veenapani (the veenabearing one).
97alaap: a slow introductory passage played or sung at the start of a rendition of classical music.
98chandrabindu: in the Bengali alphabet, the mark placed over a letter to indicate its nasal intonation.
99Pashupati: Shiva.The name Pashupati literally means ‘lord of beasts’.
100Kalighat: a famous temple in Calcutta dedicated to the fierce goddess Kali, to whom blood-sacrifices are made.
101old tale: Baital Pachisi, an old Hindi story, translated into Bengali by Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar.
102Reflect constantly...: from Shankaracharya’s Mohamudgar. The original uses the word artha in the sense of money, wealth. Rabindranath punningly applies it in its other meaning, that is, sense, meaning.
103 Ganesh has a banana tree (kalabou) for a bride.
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104Mar-hatta: the warlike Maratha tribes who once inhabited present-day Maharashtra.The use of the archaic Mar-hatta allows a pun with the Bengali word ‘mar’ (beating).
105Jayadeva: a famous medieval Bengali poet, author of the Gita Govinda.
106Gaya: a place in Bihar believed to be specially propitious for the rites of the dead.
13
PUPU-DIDI’S PRIDE WAS HURT. IN THE FALLING DUSK, SHE CAME AND SAT close to me, leaning on the arm of my chair. Looking the other way, she said, ‘You keep making up childish stories about me. What pleasure do you get out of it?’
Nowadays, I lack the courage to laugh at her words. So I put on an affable expression and replied, ‘At your age, you’re all anxious to give proof of your mature wisdom. At my time of life, one likes to think that one’s spirit is still young. So when I get the chance, I absorb myself in acts of made-up childishness. Perhaps they’re unbecoming at times.’
‘Well, if you’re childish all the time, then it’s not real childishness. The young always show signs of age.’
‘Now that’s a marvellous thing you’ve said, Didi. Even a baby’s soft body has a frame of unyielding bone. How could I have forgotten this?’
‘You seem to suggest that nothing happened in my childhood that was funny but needn’t be made fun of.’
‘Give me an example.’
‘Think of our schoolmaster. He was peculiar, but peculiar through and through. That’s why we liked him so much.’
‘Do remind me of some of the things he used to say.’
‘I remember his face clearly even today. In class, he seemed to be completely detached; he knew all the books by heart. His face turned upwards, he would reel off the lesson: it seemed as if the words were raining down from the heavens. He didn’t seem bothered whether we attended class or listened attentively to the lesson: he was content to leave it to our discretion.’