The Artist and the Hill-window
BY B. KRISHNA
To the artist, the hill-window is like an oasis in
a desert. He sits there spell-bound like a snake, admiring the magic of his Guru, an unknown and invisible Artist.
He feels, inspired by His incomparable greatness, nobility and loftiness; he
feels enraptured by the colour and form of His handiwork–the snow-capped peaks,
the velvet mountain slopes, the valley-fields of emerald and gold, and, above
all, the pretty jargons of multi-coloured birds–the sharp, shrill whistling of
sparrows and the happy long tune of the Kayare
that
In some melodious plot
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
The artist lives in a lonely cottage, amidst tall,
majestic deodars, which look like so many ‘pagodas’–all racing up to the
heavens. A cluster of them reflects the religious atmosphere of a
sanctuary–‘the innocent and quiet hermitage of the poet.’ In that spiritual air
they stand mute and motionless, both morning and evening, and seem to offer
their prayers. The artist, too, joins the congregation. He feels happier in
their company, being far away from the madding crowd. But the peace and
seclusion of his cottage are broken by ‘sounds and sweet airs that give delight
and hurt not.’
Not only that the artist finds joy in chirping
birds that hop from branch to branch, he also feels envious of the kite cutting
circles and in every circle going higher and higher, or when it swoops upon a
prey or majestically floats in the air as a fish swims in water. He longs for
wings to enjoy cool walks in heaven’s uncharted and immeasurable blue and
silver fields, and to have flights to distant mountains and snowy summits.
Sometimes when the mist rises up, he delightfully watches the ascending spirals
of heavenly smoke. Creeping through the deodars, it rushes into his window and
wraps him up in its swirling fleecy vapours. Everything is enveloped in that
pure, divine whiteness, and its strong, cold puffs give him the unbounded
pleasures of heaven. It rises still higher and forms itself into patches of
white clouds slowly and silently sailing on the deep blue. Soon they gather
into thick, black clouds, and scud at a terrific speed, thundering and
threatening the terrestrial beings. The limitless sky looks like a bankless
river in spate. A blinding flash of lightning, a savage roar and the whole
vault rumbles like an infuriated beast. His joy turns into fear. He grows
gloomy to see the savage looks of God Indra. Small, silvery bullets angrily
slash the earth. Flowers, plants and birds meet their doom. The artist feels
pained to see this ‘armageddon’–Nature killing nature, as men kill men on the
battlefield. But he praises the Great Artist for the grim reality with which He
depicts in incisive details the baser side of everything in this world. And when
God’s fury is over, he sees all objects regaining happiness. Birds tune sweet
melodies, branches meet in a loving embrace, and the blooming flowers smile all
the more–all forgetting, like worldly beings, the dead before the green grows
over their graves. The whole landscape emerges out of the ‘deluge’ happier,
having the brightness and freshness of a new-born child or a lovely dawn.
In the golden haze of the afternoon, when it is
sunny and warm, gentle, cool breezes lull the artist to sleep. Drowsiness is
overpowering. The spirit of the lotos-laters creeps in him, and he feels.
With half-shut eyes ever to seem
Falling asleep in a half-dream.
In that ‘drunken’ state of enchantment, the artist
sometimes hears the sweet buzz of bees, and at others the merry tinkling of
bells round the necks of mules and pack-ponies trudging their long, wearisome
way on a winding road on the opposite mountain; the sweet sound rises and falls
in the clean, thin air as the animals take a turn, and sinks fainter and
fainter in the distance. His ears also catch the captivating cuckoo-like voice
of a ‘solitary reaper’, or the chorus-singing of a pahari song by the ‘mountain-fairies’, while they are cutting grass
or grazing cattle on some hill slope or working in some paddy field. These
sweet voices echo in the mountains once, but they echo and re-echo in his heart
again and again, and touching the innermost chords of his mind, throw him into
a mood of ecstasy. And the artist feels enthralled to drink in the soft whisper
of the deodars, when they gently but drunkenly swing, as if charmed by the puff
of the Great Magician.
Mountains, high and low, of all shapes and
shades–green, blue, snow-white and clean-shaven like the round-heads of the
Puritan Age, with beautiful valleys
lying at their feet, too, present the artist with a picturesque landscape. He
feels bedazzled when the sublime, snowy peaks glimmer in the evening under the
golden rays of the setting sun, with an attractive background of a beautiful
sapphire sky. His admiration increases when he beholds the west blushing like a
girl of twenty, growing, now crimson, then violet, and changing colour at every
moment; but it is still greater when he sees a mackerel sky; or thin, long
stripes of red, with the deep blue peeping, and appearing like a veritable
zebra. The artist drinks deep in the Great Book of Nature. He opens wide the
windows of his mind and lets a perennial stream of poetic thoughts rush in; and
these torrents from the Great Book irrigate the ‘wilderness’ of his intellect.
The sun sets behind the distant pine-tops, leaving
a trail of golden and saffron clouds, painted on a smooth light blue canvas, on
the horizon. Light makes a slow and lingering exit. Twilight comes to an end.
Heaven closes its big blue eye and spreads a black sheet upon which bright
gems–Mercury and Venus, or Dhruva and the Sapta Rishis, sparkle out in their
matchless glory and splendour. The Diana, the fair enchantress, raises her
large, round, splendidly beautiful face, and floods the hills and dales with
her mellow light. Clothed in the dim, pale rays of the moon, all earthly and
ethereal objects look more attractive. A cool breeze embraces the artist. It
rushes through his long, glossy hair. He feels as if the tender, lovely fingers
of his dear, departed beloved affectionately ruffle his hair and caress him.
Sometimes the breezes carry along with them the ‘fragrance’, nay the Arcadian sweetness, of a flute of
some Farmer Oak enjoying the loveliness of Nature and trying to discern what
Carlyle calls “the god-like mysteries of God’s universe”, or singing the Hymn
of Youth in a soft and low tune. A bewitching sense takes hold of the artist.
The deodars, too, seem hypnotised. They dance and sing some melody, eulogizing
the imagination and feeling of the Great Artist. Ah! there is the beauty and
the music not only of the deodars, but also of the spheres to enchant, to
inspire and to feed the hungry soul of the young artist ; there is
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto him
from the heaven’s brink.
It is all heavenly; sad and ugly thoughts being
driven away, the artist’s face gleams with a joyful mirth. A sweet smile dances
upon his face, like the merry ripples of a moon-lit lake–all in a profound
silence, which is golden rather than silvern.
(My reminiscences of Dalhousie).