THE POETRY OF SITAKANT MAHAPATRA

HARAPRASAD PARICHA PATNAIK

Our times have regained a reputation to notoriety for being confusing, so are the critics of poetry in Orissa. It has hardly been possible to know the passionate feelings of a poem through criticism. Rather the “sincere” critics have devoted their talents to take the readers away from the poets and the essence of poetry with such commonplace charges as “deliberately ambiguous,” “a composition without any relevant meaning”, “inconsistent ideas put together by force”, “lines echoing Camus, Sartre and Kafka,” etc. The most interesting part of it is the use of similar or identical paragraphs in respect of different poets; and reading them one is left with the feeling that one has already read it somewhere before. Some of the unhealthy factors leading to such criticism are the dogmatic assumptions, the incapacity for valid empathy and emotions and the lack of genuine taste and critical integrity. Such criticism can only hamper the growth and proper appreciation of poetry. Poetry like any other branch of art always aims at greatness of them and aesthetic significance. It grapples with the transcendental and the metaphysical inturns of concrete human situations. Its laws, as of art and life, are to be dictated by necessity and reason. The responsibility of a critic is to highlight some of these outstanding features which inform a good new poem, dispassionately without losing his sympathy for the poet. Today what the “new poetry” needs from the critics and the readers alike is the systematic reorientation of emotion and the reshaping of the approach to experience for better understanding and appreciation.

In this note it is proposed to take out one major poet, of the present times in Oriya literature for an overall assessment of his search for coherence and relevance. Oriya poetry in the early sixties witnesses a kind of monotony and emptiness masticating the impoverished soul. The competition with and defect of man by the machine, the anguished hearts unstowed of love viewing the world as a strange land and the resultant un-surmountable sorrow become the pivotal point, the primary concern to exponents like Sachi Routray and Guruprasad Mohanty. Their poetry of this period is mostly influenced by contemporary Western poetry. They are a sort of romantic realists with much of irony in their souls. They are shattered by the strained consciousness and the fragmented moments of apprehension. But the later sixties marks a subtle change in the attitude of poets. Some of the repeated questionings of the it penseroso like “How far is the Emar Math from Ramakrishna mission?” find answer in Sitakant Mahapatra. Precisely he has been a vital link between the two kinds of poetry–the modern and new. In his modes of expressions and technique of composition he leads the reader from confusion to stability, from poetry that is technique to poetry that speaks the language of everyday life, smells of the soil and yet is without parallel in its metaphysical anguish. To vie with such changes Sitakant and Ramakant emerged as the two major voices in the sixties. Starting from one point they proceeded in two distinct ways.

In most of his work Sitakant has the bold belief in the inevitability of nature. To him the creations of nature are not the appendages of the human world or human interest. They are the predesigned dots of a chess game to be played by the great hands of destiny. But his “new voice” does not agree with his predecessors, that all the trial of men are only inept and sluggish effort to get rid of the ineffable agony of life. He has the exorable hope of a meliorist to put forth persistent effort for the clearer march of life. He acknowledges the acrid suffering perching on broad shoulders of men, the cataclasmic incidents threatening the stability of human life. Incited by the fibres of those multiracial hurdles caused by the impalpable hand he never loses his self with any magnetic dip. He conceives these as the ineffectual strife of men with fallacy of Fato, the boundless aspirations with limited resources breaking life to splinters as a sort of natural process originating from the roots of biology and relates its identity to the beginning of life-process. The interaction of the mind between two extremes, one of grief, darkness and non-being and the other of ecstacy, light and being is at the root of human frustration. It is as if man stood as a lightpole in the street corner but without a bulb. Sri Mahapatra tries to depict that suffering which is elemental to life and all that man has to do is to reaffirm the faith in self and compose the divergent elements of mind to a state of meditative calm. To strengthen the point of view about his thematic analysis he has a flair to go deep into history and tradition to bring out the glaring examples of innocent suffering. He has the knack of discovering in his fading past the innovations of the future and vice versa. Taking up the responsibility to evaluate and interpret the complex network of the modern mind in the light of the classics with strong emotional undercurrent and imaginative exuberance he is possibly the first skilled artist to blend the antiquity with modernity. In short his business has been to inherit and enrich the Oriya tradition over a vast canvas of time with the sublime vision and vehement passion for:

“Hupsos megalophrosunes apechema.”

Thus in him we find a systematic and beautiful combination of classicism of a Sarala Das, a Jagannath Das and a Bhima Bhoi, with an acute awareness of the modern situation of man, a mixing of different times and mythological persons like Jara, Kubja, Parikhit with Solan, the lonely protagonist in his Astapadi representing modern man; places like Ayodhya and Mathura with Cuttack the epitome of modern Oriya life and culture and Bhubaneswar the place for waiting in boredom.

One can register from his three collections in Oriya the three distinct places of his poetic life and the steady progress from interrogation, manly innocence to understanding and human awareness. His first collection Dipty O’ Dwuty published in 1963 shows his interest in the technique of composition to give to his poetic perception and imagination a remarkable architectonic unity with soft rhythmic language often lyrical and the orchestration of words with contiguous diction. This is a colourful aesthetic manifestation of a poetic reaction to the lives around, a period of silent observation and subtle reaction. In the preface to this collection one can discern his formative views about poetry. According to him the depth, width and intensity of experience or the stirring of a conception is basic to poetry and for him “two contradictory experiences, one of connection, sympathy, vastness, compassion and non-ego and the other of alienation, dispassionate feeling and nonporous soundless silence are very elemental.” Both the opposing forces work on him at different times and at times simultaneously. “Every element of nature, everybody in society and every faculty of mind sometimes seem very familiar to me. The plants outside my window, a tiny butterfly, the lonely evening and the stars on the distant shore of the solitary sky have given the lively pleasure...The leper shouting for alms in front of the house, playful naked boys jumping on sand hills, daily labourers carrying cement to the roof...among them I am scattered.

“And sometimes nothing is visible either the outer or the inner nature–all are vague and meaningless. All seem as if they are clear networks of limitless, endless illusion. A drop of tear somewhere grows passionate, only sorrow, tear, unexpressed agony and silence–all the bridges break down, communications submerge under the unknown sorcery of an obscure silence. There seems to appear an uncharted sea between existence and matter, conscience and things around ... fades the humdrum, no words but only the primeval hymn of the great silence, the ancient tears of great sorrow. Both the experiences are parts of the inner conflict...

This conflict is the essence of most of my poems.”

This experience of poetry, as he says, taken a vivid form in the eight long poems of “Astapadi” (1967) where one notices the most sophisticated use of myths and archetypes possibly in the whole range of modern Indian poetry to depict the eternal problems of man the human condition. These eight poems are a progression and seek to find some coherence and relevance from the absurdity of life. The contemplation of vices and virtues, the ferocious fire of hell burning man at each moment, the terror of death blistering spiteful curses on life, suspicion, hatred, frustration and then pain as component parts of each individual life dissolving to dust are briefly the subject matter of this volume. All these poems confirm the tragedy of man combusted in the fire of hell–drawing examples from suffering of great souls like Vasudeva, Devaki and Duryodhana, etc. ‘The pains of Death Dance’, to quote Prof. J. M. Mohanty, “and the journey of Solan towards a life experience of fulfilment springing from the experience of death is the essence of Astapadi. Death and the surrounding connexion and the complexity of this connexion find expression in this volume.”

Thus all the individual voices of this volume mingle with the voice of Solan, the protagonist of the last poem. The vast sea all around and its ever waking blue eyes has left a small island for George Solan to spend fifty-two years of lonely life. The sea for him is the only prison, the only world. Thus unimaginable patience in him brings a sort of transformation in life to find in the sea the adequate recompense of his loss. As such he finds a new meaning in loneliness for he has come to be a part of the sea. He is alone but no longer lonely. The desperate search for coherence, meaning and relevance gives the mature awareness that acceptance can be the most dignified form of rejection or protest against the human condition. What invests human endeavour with meaning is the quiet dignity of the struggle. For Kubja transformation comes at a mythic moment by the touch of Lord Krishna. And for today’s man this moment could be any moment when he suddenly discovers the dark lane from the realm of inanity to his true authenticity. The hunch-backed Kubja thus becomes a symbol for modern man. This transformation of Kubja or Solman’s close intimacy with the sea might foster a possibility for redemption which could be the only hope in the remorseful life of the protagonist.

In Sabdar Akash (1971) or The Sky of Words one may discern this search for coherence in more elaborate situations both personal as well as social. The protagonist in “My Garden” waits for the moment to renew old acquaintance with

“My dearest friend

My unrelenting agony.”

All that he has is the personal limited time within which to play out his dreams and despair, his hopes and anguish. But this is interposed with an awareness of impersonal Time.

Where my garden ends

I have seen the road, coiling

Flickering its lazy tongue,

Suddenly it will like away

My fence, my flowers and all my leaves

And merge them into emptiness–

Let the oceans seek their islands

And the leaves lean on hills

Here I shall await your visit

For I know that you are coming

My ineluctable friend.

Here the protagonist never escapes the destiny but waits for the sudden call near the gate “How do you do Sitakant? After a long time we meet.” And the coming of this great occasion coincides with the dross, the quotidian, the ordinary and usual practice of sipping tea, playing on the transistor and scanning the pages of the newspaper. The defeat of the protagonist in the poem “Dice Game” is inevitable for he is not given the benefit of a clear vision. It seems as if someone has thrown dust into his eyes that he is unable to discriminate between the dots of his own and his rival. Each moment for him is the moment of intangible taste. He has been enticed by the illusions of a golden place on the other side of the river but never given any means to cross it. Thus his mute protest is to get some resources to meet the huge obstacle.

In this way Sabdar Akash tries to bring through words whatever meaning is possible. In the poem “The Sky of Words” Sri Mahapatra depicts how words are the equivalents of emotions, events and situations. The sky is the manifestation of words. They are the personal time, the history and also the eternity.

In the words the sky the sky

of the blue and grey words......

on the face of those coloured lines

my soul and the ancient life of earth

all engraved;

This leads to the recognition of eternity, the invisible self present at all times.

O my blue sky, the grey real

O maimed, fragmented blue friend of my heart

by your tears and wounds only

what little understanding of this obscure world;

in the soundless conspiracy of time, echoless

the infinite expanse of the shapeless cave...

you alone the presence piercing all.

This gradual change from chaos and confusion to a state of tranquillity and stability the poet feels, as a painful necessity for existence. If agony in abiding sorrow is inseparable and the virulent pain indispensable then let us make them our companions so that they never seem alien to us. The ethos is to maintain the integrity before them without dissolution. The deep understanding of the multidimensional meaning of the contemporary life and the contemplation of human destiny makes him the most metaphysical and the most significant in the new poetry of Orissa and his command of the folk idiom gives his poetry some nearness to the reading public. So much talking on him Nissim Ezekiel while reviewing his poems translated into English said “Suffering as experienced in a sense of dissolution and despair is redeemed by searching for and finding meaning as well as aesthetic form. There is no equivalent here of the Home or of verbal fragmentation in Western poetry. On the contrary, there is a definite emphasis on the cohesive and the lucid.”

That is how Sitakant Mahapatra, I feel would remain the most significant influence on the writings of today and tomorrow.

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