251 POETRY AS PERSONALITY Every form of art is the expression of the artist‟s personality. This is true in the case of poetry and poets also. Every poem that the poet composes is not merely the expression of his emotions, thoughts, reflections, musings and vision, but each and every word and line in the poem carries the personality of the poet which is distinctive. When the whole poem is subjected to a close scrutiny, all words and lines in the poem imprinted with the unique individuality of the poet reveal the personality of the poet, as the poet‟s personality runs through the poem as a sort of undercurrent. To understand and grasp the personality of the poet, the critic needs to penetrate through the poet‟s words and poetic lines and to take a deep dive into the poem‟s undercurrent where the poet‟s personality lies hidden. Most poets usually refuse to make their personalities explicit, wearing it on the surface of their words and lines in their poems and they choose to have their personalities camouflaged. This is the practice adopted by most English poets and Indian - English poets, who veil their personalities in their poems.
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251
POETRY AS PERSONALITY
Every form of art is the expression of the artist‟s personality.
This is true in the case of poetry and poets also. Every poem that the
poet composes is not merely the expression of his emotions,
thoughts, reflections, musings and vision, but each and every word
and line in the poem carries the personality of the poet which is
distinctive. When the whole poem is subjected to a close scrutiny,
all words and lines in the poem imprinted with the unique
individuality of the poet reveal the personality of the poet, as the
poet‟s personality runs through the poem as a sort of undercurrent.
To understand and grasp the personality of the poet, the critic needs
to penetrate through the poet‟s words and poetic lines and to take a
deep dive into the poem‟s undercurrent where the poet‟s personality
lies hidden. Most poets usually refuse to make their personalities
explicit, wearing it on the surface of their words and lines in their
poems and they choose to have their personalities camouflaged.
This is the practice adopted by most English poets and Indian -
English poets, who veil their personalities in their poems.
252
There is another kind of poets who never like to conceal their
personalities in their poems. Their personalities are so transparent
that each and every word and line in their poems carry them on the
surface. These poets indite certain poems to demonstrate to the
world what stuff their vibrant and distinctive personalities are made
of. Just as we can see in a mirror our physical appearances, the
reader can look into each poem and assess the personality of the
poet very clearly. We can read the poet‟s poems only once and
catch his whole personality instantly, simply because the poet is
astoundingly candid, bares his whole self and places it into our
hands. It is for the reader to have the rare delight of imbibing the
vibrant and beautiful personality of the poet. Harindranath belongs
to this school of poets with transparent personalities.
Harindranath penned a considerable number of poems through
which he bares his whole personality, employing poetry as an
effective means for the revelation of his personality. Though a
mystic, Harindranath is essentially a poet by nature and a singer who
untiringly and ceaselessly keeps singing. His is a musical
personality rooted deeply in poems that flow, like a perennial river
253
from his pen. In poem after poem, Harindranath rejoices celebrating
his poetic and musical personality. So the celebration of the poet‟s
personality becomes one of the themes in the poetry of Harindranath
Chattopadhyaya. The critic, exploring the thematic concerns in the
poetry of Harindranath, can hardly turn a blind eye to this.
To come face to face with the most beautiful personality of
Harindranath ever vibrating with mellifluous music and radiating
with marvellous poetic beauty is an experience that stirs ripples of
raptures in the pools of the readers‟ hearts.
Let us take a close look at his poems. Harindranath always
prides over his being an artist and being blessed with soaring poetic
imagination. For instance, in his collection of poems “Foot-Falls”,
Harindranath sings of his blessed state of being:
I am an artist full of wondrous things;
My thoughts are boats arrived from many a shore
A rich sensation of unnumbered wings,
Is mine for ever, that is why I soar”1
(Sonnet 38)
An artist‟s mind is always filled with wondrous things to
which myriad thoughts come floating like boats and on countless
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wings, the poet‟s mind soaring higher and higher into the world of
imagination. The images “boats” and “unnumbered wings” are quite
apt and highly evocative. Singing is not at all a pastime, but a
need to the poet and the poet claims to be the king of poetry:
And yet, some how, I must sit down to sing
And when I sit, song comes to me, in deed,
Since being of constant poesy a king,
Song is to me no pastime, but a need 2
(Sonnet 22)
Writing poetry and singing is the essential part of the poet‟s
personality and throughout his life, till his last breath, the poet kept
on singing untiringly. Writing poetry is not a pastime nor is it a
forced business for Harindranath. Poems sprout out of him quite
naturally:
Verses come to me
As blossoms to a tree
As colours to a shell
As seconds to a minute
As circles to a well
When a pebble drops within it3
(Inspiration)
As a tree blooming blossoms, a shell possessing colours, a
minute containing seconds and a pebble perturbed well stirring with
circles of waves, Harindranath ever keeps blooming myriad poems
and scattering hues and perfumes of his poems. What a vivid and
enchanting depiction of his poetic personality! One is reminded of
255
Keats‟s statement that poetry should come naturally like the leaves
of a tree and if it does not, it had not come at all.
Harindranath is undoubtedly a born poet who pens poetry
spontaneously and who never waits for thoughts and words. The
poet further elaborates this natural gift of poetry he possesses:
I stand, a silent tower,
While over me like rain
Incessant verses shower.4
(Inspiration)
Only when blessed by afflatus and divine vibrations, the poet
composes poems spontaneously. That‟s why the poet says that
verses shower over him like incessant rain. The metaphor “A silent
tower” aptly explains the state of poetic creation wrapped up in the
stillness of inspiration and elevated to a soaring height of
imagination. The poet is truly a silent tower who receives incessant
showers of poems like rain from the celestial world.
The poet cannot explain this mysterious process of sprouting
of poems and he does not know how he scatters hues and perfumes
of his poems all his way. The poet does not bother about the
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reaction of the world to his poetry and striking a stoic posture to the
world, the poet likes to remain immune to both bouquets and brick -
bats his poetry evokes from the world and resolves to continue to
tread his lonely paths:
Go on lonely ways
Immune to blame and praise,
To blessings and to curses5
(Inspiration)
The poet‟s abundant, lasting love for poetry and his iron
resolve to stick on to the muse, unmindful of the worldly reactions,
are amply revealed in these lines.
Harindranath‟s poetic mind in its keen and intense observation
of nature absorbs all things unfailingly in the world and ceaselessly
works out from its memory and turns out innumerable poems on
such things observed and absorbed:
Memory is an album
In which the world has signed.
What proud and precious signatures
Of water, cloud and wind
Are being inscribed each moment
In the pages of my mind 6
(Autograph)
257
The poet‟s creative mind is well compared to an “immortal
album‟ that receives autographs from all things in the world.
Through the aptly chosen image of “Album”, the poet conveys
effectively the potentialities of the poet‟s creative mind:
Planets and purple twilights,
Day breaks and suns withdrawn
Whole centuries of night-fall,
Whole centuries of dawn
In my immortal album
This signatures go on 7
(Autograph)
The poet sings for all people in the world and he sings of
people‟s joys and sorrows. His songs are also for the poor and the
under-privileged like the cobbler, the tinker, tiller, toiler, the
fisherman and the sweeper:
I sing for the peoples of the world,
I sing for the ordinary and the extraordinary
……………………………………………..
…………………………………………….
I sing for my people
Their sorrows, their tragedies
I sing of murder, rape and suicides 8
So to dub Harindranath only as a mystical poet, singing of
mystical subjects is untenable. The lines above serve as the poet‟s
manifesto and reveal the poet‟s involvement in people‟s life and his
commitment to masses.
258
Having learned the cunning craft of word–Jewellery and
finding himself‟ on a plane of dreams‟ and feeling like an
uncrowned emperor of the world the poet utters:
And yet I sat unseen,
Unnoticed, unpublished,
An ordinary solitary creature
Trying to sew the torn sheet of time
With needle of patience and
Thread of affection 9
The poet is a solitary soul unseen and unnoticed by the world.
Absorbed in solitude, the poet keeps penning poems
The poet proclaims proudly, “I found myself on a plane of
dreams/ I found myself to be uncrowned emperor”10
Here, the description of the poet as “uncrowned emperor
certainly brings to our minds, shelley‟s eulogy of the poet as an
unacknowledged legislator of the world. “The poet sewing the torn
shirt of time” is really a rich metaphor that conveys the greater job
the poet takes up to perform with patience and affection for the sake
of posterity. Though the poet is not sure of the world‟s appreciation
of his work, he feels quite confident:
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…. The bride in eternity
Will read my writings
If not this world on earth….11
These lines tinged with mystical streak affirm the poet‟s
commitment to the muse.
The poet must keep writing poems all the time and he should
not stop it nor can anybody stop him as it is an ever going activity
that knows no end. Just as one can not stop the sun-rise, waves in
the sea, storm and chilly winds, one can not stop the poet from
writing poetry. So the poet proclaims, “Since each breath of mine
is an unborn poem waiting for a cradle to rest in”12
Writing poetry is as natural as the sun-rise, waves in the sea,
storm and chilly winds in nature to the poet and the poet ever carries
the rhythm of nature in his blood. So his pen ceaselessly keeps
writing lines of poetry. Proclaiming his dedication to writing poetry,
Harindranath continues to sing:
Each line leading me to my goal
Nay, do not ask me to stop writing
I shall not stop even after
My breathing . . .
Poetry is my soul
No body dare crush it 13
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Only true, born poets can make such declarations as is done by
Hrindranath. Painting the poet as a series of fireflies/sparkling into
poetry, Hrindranath describes himself as a fire - fly flying over all
places of the world and carrying the spark of God:
I am a fire fly who fly
Across air, across grass, across flowers
I am God‟s own spark
Expressed in the fitful moods words of the divine
One spark of mine, is worth a million stars…
Since it could save a traveller on the road of
earth
From dropping into a ditch …..14
Employing an apt image of a fire-fly, Harindranath describes
not only the imaginative flights of the poet‟s mind, but also the
profound mission performed by the poet. The poet is the ever-
burning light of the world who sheds the unfailing light over the
path of travellers of the world and guides them properly to the
destinations of their travels. The poet lights the paths of people in
their journey of life and guides and leads them. It is true that the
poet is the beacon light of the world.
Elevating the status of the poet to that of a creator on earth
and of the supporter and helper of God in His creation, Harindranath
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depicts the magnificent role of the poet in the scheme of things in
God‟s creation. While creating the world and many colours in His
creation, God needed red colour to create sun-rise and sun-set. So
God asked the poet to lend his blood to create sun rise and sun-set.
Refusing to take red colours from sleepless eyes, weeping eyes and
war-fare as suggested by the poet, God wishes to take poet‟s blood
only for His creation of sun rise and sun set:
He says he wants the redness of a poet‟s blood,
Of the blood of a dreamer,
Of the blood of a creator on earth
To help Him, to support his own creation. 15
These lines clearly affirm the fact that the poet is the earthly
creator whom even the Heavenly Creator approaches for help and
support in His creation.
Only when the poet identifies himself passionately and merges
himself absolutely with the subjects on which he writes poetry, he
can have true commitment to his art and he can become a true artist.
The true artist not only needs identification with the subjects of his
poetry, but also a soaring imagination and a penetrating vision:
262
In order to paint a bird
The artist must become the sky,
In order to paint an apple
He must become the entire season of autumn
In order to paint a fish
He must become the whiteness of swirling and
Swishing waters; “16
In order to paint the portrait of a man, he must become
complete humanity:
In order to capture the rapture of colours
He must be self -cancelled into a state of burning
whiteness 17
Here, Harindranath asks the artist to envision beyond the
things of the world and capture the beyond of all things and very
sources of the things. Only when the artist succeeds in becoming the
sources of all things in the world, he can become a true artist. To
paint a bird, the sky, to paint an apple, the whole season of autumn,
to paint a fish, the waters, to paint a man, the humanity, to paint a
colour, the white colour, the poet must capture and identity himself
with them. In these musings too, Harindranath sounds too mystical.
However, the thought expressed in the lines is highly profound.
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A woman gives birth to her off-spring, experiencing pangs of
birth. Creativity is a sort of motherhood and the man endowed with
creativity has to undergo severe labourpains similar to those of a
mother:
But I am a man
The little kicks of the stomachs are in my heart
Giving birth to thoughts, poems and reflections18
Unlike the mother, quite strangely, the poet experiences the
little kicks of his babies, not in his stomach, but in his heart. A
Strange, but a pleasant creative process the poet undergoes willingly.
Poetry bestows on the poet, the blessing of immortality and
poets are always beyond the reach of the God of death. Failing to
find the poet at his home, Yama, the God of death asks the woman
inside the poet‟s home:
How long shall he escape my grasp?
And a voice echoed. “As long as he writes verses19
That poets are the immortal souls, is established in these lines.
The poet is not all flesh like other human beings. The flesh
of man perishes. But the spirit of the poet never perishes and it ever
continues to exist in the world and serves the divine purpose. That‟s
why God admonishes Yama:
264
God said to yama,:
Fool! You cannot touch the
poet until I need him,
until he serves a purpose in my heaven
-------------------------------------
-------------------------------------
You cannot feed so easily on the flesh of poets
whose flesh is spirit.
And you will not bite and crunch the
Spirit20
These lines proclaim the immortality of the poet. The people
of creativity are blessed with immortality. Of these blessing of
immortality the creative people enjoy, Harindranath mentions, “he
who contributes immortal creations to life, as does a Shakespeare, a
Kalidas, a Picasso, an Ajanta Painter – defeats death, death does not
know what to do with earthly creators of heavenly creations.21
About the power of poetry, the poet utters, “Nay, do not scorn
the poet‟s pen/ It is a flashing sword that wins”. 22
(The Poet).
Through the effective metaphor of “Flashing Sword”, Harindranath
conveys the might of the poet‟s pen.
Though the poet suffers and is tortured in the world, “He is a
Lord of eves and norms / a master – traveller of repose / Although
265
his feet are bruised by thorns / His mind is like a shining rose. 23
(The Poet). Unmindful of the troubles, tortures and persecutions he
faces in the world, the poet‟s mind remains unperturbed and the poet
continues his journey in the world in tranquillity. The equanimity
and tranquaillity of the poet‟s mind and his untrammelled, tranquil
travel in the mundane world are well expressed in these lines,
driving home the power of the poet‟s mind and poetry.
The poet claims no credit for himself for the eternal inspiration
that flows into him. Instead, he realizes “Each word is, as a golden
drop/dripped from Thy Goblets into me.”24
. (Inspiration). The poet is
convinced that each poem penned by him is the manifestation of the
divine. He confesses:
Each poem, poet! Is a brief
Self-revelation of Thy Bough
Of silence in its fullest leaf
Which Thou dost to man‟s heart allow25
(inspiration)
The poet does not sing aimlessly and he believes firmly that
his poetry has a mission of its own which is not mundane and
ordinary. Each of his poems leads him to the divine, fulfilling its
extraordinary, sublime mission and through singing of the divine in
266
myriad ways and in a number of his poems, the poet aspires to reach
the divine and to merge with Him:
Through song, through every verse and line,
I reach Thee in a hundred ways,
And gradually grow Divine
By granting Thee my human praise26
(Inspiration)
These lines sound Tagorean as Harindranath more or less
echoes Tagore on the sublime goal of his verse and songs.
Despite the astounding, enormous poetic output, Harindranath
never finds his writing wearisome and is never tired of writing. Not
content with his voluminous creative output, the poet feels that his
master-piece is yet to come out and he continues to write untiringly
to create the same:
For one who seeks the word of light
The master-piece is still to come
For ever. Thus it is I write,
Nor ever find it wearisome. 27
(Inspiration)
The poet is of the firm belief that a master-piece of an artist is
not an instant product nor is it a fruit of the labours of a few years.
Harindranath opines, “A master-piece is the appearance of centuries
267
in exquisite make up on the stage of Time”28
. In the light of this, the
above poetic lines reveal the poet‟s creative unrest and his relentless
pursuit of the Muse and his patient waiting for the birth of his
master-piece Quintessentially rooted in song and being pure rhythm
always, Harindranath proudly sings of his singing abilities:
By right of ages I belong
To the dominion of song,
Each fibre of me is a wire
Which tingles into singing fire
……………….
……………….
And so from out of every thing
I draw a lovely song to sing” 29
(Poet)
So the poet, unbothering about tomorrow, wishes to have the
joy of singing though nobody listens to his songs:
O Poet! sing while the eyes are wet and the
tear drop glistens
Song is its own reward, why grieve if nobody
Listens30
.
The poet has to wait patiently for the poem to come to him and
when it comes to him, he must capture it and release it on paper.
About the birth of poem and creative process, Harindranath chants:
Some times it breaks to a humming
O poet! a poem is coming”
And I wait and I wait for the poem
Which changes its mind and withdraws31
(Silent Speech)
268
Just as the secret of earth is perfume, the secret of the poet is
song that sprouts out of the poet‟s deepest self. Harindranath lets out
this pleasant truth about the poet‟s unique personality:
Behind mask of the surface
To my deepest self I belong:
The secret of earth is perfume,
The secret of me is song.32
The poet is not of the body, but of the self where in lies the song
as the secret hidden. It is the song that defines the poet‟s
personality. Only when this secret of poet‟s soul is captured, the
poet‟s personality becomes comprehensible.
Waiting for inspiration with sheets of paper before him to
compose poems is an experience alien to Harindranath. A born
poet always in a state of inspiration, soaring high in his poetic
imagination, with a vision capturing all the things of the external
world and the world beyond and a mighty pen, embodying beauties
of the physical world and truths of the world beyond in his numerous
poems, poems come flooding to him like tides in the sea:
Songs, foaming into beauty, full and lush,
Tide after tide come dancing forth to me 33
(Song – Hush )
269
Harindranath never struggled nor took pains to pen poems,
simply because song is an essential part of his life and the very
breath of his blessed life. And he goes on singing and by singing all
the time, he overcomes even sorrow and death:
Song is my life –pulse, song is my breath
And so I go singing away,
Hearing my music both sorrow and death
Look out each other and wonder and hardly
know what to say! 34
(Inspiration)
Just as earth creates a rose easily and spontaneously,
Harindranath in his high moments of inspiration, creates poems.
The creation of poetry is an unconscious, spontaneous and natural
process for a born-poet like him:
I am, as blind as earth which hardly knows
How it creates a rose
When I create a rhyme 35
(Spontaneity)
Why does Harindranath compose poetry? Not certainly for
fame. The poet does not crave nor does he know the art of
becoming famous. Just as blossoms appear on the branches of plants
and trees, poems come to him naturally and spontaneously. The
poet confesses :
270
I do not know the road
Leading to Fame‟s abode
I am ignorant of art ;
……………………..
……………………..
“A poem, late and soon
Comes kindling All the heart” 36
(Spontaneity)
Such is the poetic and musical personality of Harindranath that
is truly committed to poetry with no commercial motive, but only
with the pure artistic purpose.
About his nature and passion of singing, Harindranath says
that he grew up singing and his singing goes on not for money, fame
and awards, but for the people of the world. He sings of the people‟s
sorrows and tragedies:
I grew up singing
And now when I look back at a ripe old age
I find that I have sung
Not for audiences which pay and come to listen,
Not for plaudits,
Not for laurels,
Nor awards 37
The poet eyes and feels a wondrous rhythm of the universe
manifested in varied sounds made by various creatures and objects
in the world. Highly sensitive to this rhythm of the universe,
271
Harindranath absorbs and dances like a peacock to singing birds,