On 23 July 2016, Devi suffered a major heart attack and was admitted to Belle Vue Clinic, Kolkata. Devi died of multiple organ failure on 28 July 2016, aged 90. She had suffered from diabetes, sepsis and urinary infection. On her death, Mamata Banerjee, Chief Minister of West Bengal tweeted \"India has lost a great writer. Bengal has lost a glorious mother. I have lost a personal guide. Mahasweta Di rest in peace.\" Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted \"Mahashweta Devi wonderfully illustrated the might of the pen. A voice of compassion, equality & justice, she leaves us deeply saddened. RIP.\" 7.2 LITERARY CRITICISM Characters Dopdi Mejhen Dopdi Mejhen is the protagonist of the story, 'Draupadi'. She was named Draupadi, the female protagonist of the Indian epic MAHABHARATA, by her mother's master Surja Sahu'swife. Maybe Dopdi is the tribal version of the Sanskrit word 'Draupadi.' She, her husband, some villagers murdered Surja Sahu, the oppressor of the village Bakuli. After this incident, they escape from Bakuli. Dopdi takes a new name Upi Mejhen. Later she gets arrested by the police. They torture her brutally (they rape her). But at the end of the story instead of being illiterate, Dopdi gives resistance to the oppressor by denying to wear clothes and becomes representative of Feminism. Mr. Senanayak He is the antagonist of this story and called \"burasaheb\" by his colleagues. He is an elderly Bengali specialist in combat and a believer of extremely left ideology. His attitude towards Dopdi and other revolutionaries symbolize the state power. He is the most complex character in the story and bears similarity with “Shakespeare’s Prospero.” In the end, Dopdi pushes Senanayak with her two mangled breasts* and challenges by saying,*\"come on, counter me\". He becomes afraid of her. Surja Sahu Surja Sahu is the rich landlord of village Bankuli. In 1971 when Birbhum (a district of west Bengal, India) gets affected by drought, Surja Sahu digs two tube wells and three wells within the compound of his two houses with the help of Biddibabu. The villagers get angry at this. Dopdi, Dulna, and their associates kill him. Dulna Majhi 151 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Dulna is the husband of Dopdi Mejhen. He acts as one of the leaders of the 'operation Bakuli' movement. He takes the name Matang Majhi after the escape. Later in the story, he gets killed by the armed forces in an encounter. he dies with a cry, \"Ma-ho.\" It means a battle cry. Mushai Tudu and his wife Dopdi takes shelter in their house after she escapes from the village Bakuli. Chamru He is the water carrier of the camp. He informs Senanayak of the meaning of \"Ma-ho. This story is set in the state of West Bengal in the times of the Naxalite rebellion against feudal landowners; a movement against upper caste exploitations and against existing caste, class and gender-based hierarchy. In her story, the state is projected as immensely powerful and controlled by the upper caste land owners, exercising the right to use oppressive tools specifically fashioned for neutralizing disobedient subjects. Here, women, as soon as they seem to be disloyal, can be violated, as they have seemingly lost their rights to ‘protection’. In her gender-specific vulnerability, Dopdi Mejhen is a widow of a revolutionary husband who is shot dead by the armed forces – she continues to be faithful to him and his political beliefs, both as an extension of her love for him and as something that she sees as her social and political duty. The story centres on her being hunted and caught by the army. She is brutally raped by multiple army men in the violent process of making her submit to them and betray the political organisation and all that it stood for. Unlike Draupadi of Mahabharata, Dopdi Mejhen, a Santal woman from a small village in Bengal, refuses to beg for someone to come to her rescue, and instead stands in front of the Senanayak (the chief of the army group) without clothes and challenges him to “counter” her. 152 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Figure 7.2 climax scene from the story 7.3CRITICAL APPROACHES TO LITERATURE Mahasweta Devi is a middle-class Bengali, activist writer and a journalist. She has made contributions to literary and cultural studies in India. Gayatri Chakravorti Spivak has translated her works in English. In her works, Mahasweta Devi addresses and interrogates the intersection of vital contemporary issues of politics, gender and class, and this is precisely what makes her a glaring figure in the field of socially committed literature. Her wide-ranging works encompass novels like Hajar Chaurahir Maa- Mother of 1084, Aranya Adhikar- The Right of forest; short fictions, children’s stories, plays and activist prose writings. Her powerful, haunting tales of exploitation and the struggle have been seen rich sides of feminist discourse by leading scholars. In Bengal, Mahasweta Devi has voiced and represented the trials and tribulations of the downtrodden tribal. In some short stories, she has profoundly portrayed the haunting experiences of Dalit women, the plight of her survival. She also reveals the dark face of so-called civilized society through a narration of the untold sufferings of a tribal woman. As a social activist, she has spent many years crusading for the rights of Dalit. She is awarded with the Jnanpith Award (India’s highest literary award) in 1996, and the Magsaysay Award, the Asian equivalent of the Nobel Prize, in 1997. Since Mahasweta is an obsessive activist and writing come to her as an instrument in her battle against exploitation, and marginalization of tribal. She challenges the patriarchal government in family and community. In her short story “Draupadi’ (first appeared in Agni Garbha (Womb of Fires) a collection of loosely connected short narratives) Mahasweta Devi ventured to write an episode from the great epic Mahabharata and as a feminist response to the myth of Draupadi (the icon of womanhood in Hindu 153 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
mythology) to the fore, a re-invented cultural history that deconstructs the representation of women, cultures, images, stereotypes and archetypes. The politics of interpretation has most often been the politics of gender. “Draupadi” is a story of Dopdi Majhen; it is a story of victimization of a woman who dares to confront the oppressive system. It narrates the predicament of a tribal woman caught between the pulls of subsistence living and the appropriatory logic of feudalistic-modernist patriarchal state and its allied system. Dopdi Majhen, a Naxalites informer-activist, is a Santhal. She, along with her husband Dulna, had rebelled against the oppressive state – feudal nexus. In the time of drought, Surja Sahu – the feudal kingpin of the area in connivance with the state - had got two tube wells and three wells dug within the compound of his two houses. When the whole Birbhum was reeling under famine, he and his class refused to let tribals share their ‘unlimited’ water sources. This instigated the rage of the suffering tribals and led them to join the Naxalites group, headed by Arijit, and culminated in the ‘revenge- killing’ of Surja Sahu and his sons. In the aftermath of this killing, and consequent upon the brutal and indiscriminate manhunt launched by the state through ‘Operation Bakuli’ Dopdi and Dulan were forced to flee and live the life of fugitives. Working in different guises with different landowners in and around Jharkhani belt, they, completely sacrificing their family and desires, dedicated themselves to the cause of movement and the social utopia and economic freedom it promised. They kept on informing their comrades about the movement of the army. Their dedication and their ability to survive created a terror among moneylenders, landlords, grain brokers etc. In order to suppress the Naxalite movement and contain the deviance inherent in it, the state launches ‘Operation Jharkhani’, initially under Arjan Singh and then under Senanayak, “a specialist in combat and extreme left politics”. Dulna, who could not survive this dastardly onslaught/hunt, fails to match Senanayak’s cunning. Betrayed by his people, he was entrapped while drinking water and ‘countered’. Since then, Dopdi Majhen is on the ‘most wanted’ list of the police and is living life anonymously. It is at this stage that the story begins. So far she has proved a match for Senanayak’s cunning and has, so far, eluded his grasp. The force of the story lies in its grounding in the Hindu mythology of gender subaltern’s body, the female body which is never questioned and only exploited. The body of Draupadi figures forth the unutterable ugliness and cruelty as she articulates a truth, speaks of her true situation, the relationship between the tribal and classical character of Draupadi. In 1970, the hostility between east and West Pakistan assumed the form of an armed struggle. Rejoicing at the general atmosphere of mirth at the defeat of North Pakistan (India’s principal national rival in South Asia) India manage to suppress naxalities that destroyed the rebellious group of the rural population tribal. The year 1971 therefore is the point of reference in the story. 154 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Draupadi is represented before us, between two versions of name Dopdi (tribal name) and Draupadi (classical ancient name). The tribalized form Dopdi is the proper name of the ancient Draupadi. At the close of the story, she becomes the object of her feelings, instead of simply being viewed as the ‘other’ portrayed as the object of male desires and fears. In the epic world, Mahasweta Devi endorses her woman characters with the freedom of speech. Remarkably enough, she writes an episode from Mahabharata, amore heterogeneous text then Ramayana. In epic, Draupadi serves a single incident of polyandry, a lesser-known marriage system in India. She is the wife of the five sons of impotent Pandu. In the patriarchal and patronymic context of the epic world, Draupadi becomes singular and her husbands are pluralized. The story questions this singularity because Dopdi is placed first as a comrade activist monogamous marriage and later in a situation of multiple rapes. The classical character of Draupadi is used as a form to prepare the ground of heroic deeds. Her legitimized pluralization as a wife amongst her husbands is emphasized to highlight male glory: she becomes the cause of crucial battle. Her eldest husband Yudhishthira is at the verge of losing her in the game of dice, when the enemy chief Duryodhana makes an effort to pull at Draupadi’s saree. She prays to Lord Krishna and as a divine miracle one sees her to be infinitely clothed and she cannot be publicly stripped off. Mahasweta Devi in her way to rewrite this episode has attempted to, the deconstruction and the reconstruction of the mythic figure of Draupadi, as a tribal Dopdi was not entitled a heroic name, this pious name was given to her by the Brahmin mistress. The aboriginal Dopdi’s name signifies the mark of her distance from the top. In her derivation of Dopdi from Draupadi, Devi has made an implicit point of view. One may find a clear contrast between the classical Draupadi and her. In the earlier case the intervention of God prevented male lust from unclothing her. On the contrary the tribal Dopdi is gang raped by police refuses to be clothed by men in office. The story opens with the discussion between two medallion uniforms: What is this, a tribal called Dopdi? The list of names I brought has nothing like it! How can anyone have an unlisted name? …Draupadi Mehjen. Born the year her mother threshed rice at Surja Sahu (killed)’s at Bakuli. Surja Sahu’s wife gave her the name. Dopdi is on the list of wanted persons, yet her name is not on the list of appropriate names for the tribal women. The entire action of the story revolves around the search for Dopdi until she is apprehended. The last disastrous scene finds her in a situation when she becomes helplessness victim of the most atrocious male violence on a woman. Surprisingly enough one may detect that the reinvented Draupadi emerges as a heroic figure. The tribal Dopdi allows men to strip her of as this has been shown as the result of political punishment: 155 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Draupadi Mehjen was apprehended at 6:53 p.m. It took an hour to get her to camp, questioning another hour exactly. No one touched her, and she was allowed to sit on a canvas camp stool. At 8:57 p.m. Senanayaks dinner hour approached and saying, “make her. Do the needful,” he disappeared… Opening her eyes after a million light years, Draupadi, strangely enough, sees sky and moon. Slowly the bloodied nail heads shift from her brain. Trying to move, she feels her arms and legs still tied to four posts. Something sticky under her ass and waist. Her own blood. Only the gag has been removed. In case she says \"water\" she catches her lower lip in her teeth. She senses that her vagina is bleeding. How many came to make her? …then Draupadi Mehjen is brought to the tent and thrown on the straw. Her piece of cloth is thrown over on her body. At this point in the story we suddenly come across a completely transformed Dopdi. We are taken aback as when she hears move! She burst into asking: Where do you want me to go? ... Draupadi fixes her eyes on the tent. Says, Come I’ll go … Draupadi stands up. She pours the water down on the ground. Tears her piece of cloth with her teeth. Senanayak is bewildered and obstruct to see her “Naked walking towards him in the bright sunlight with her head high”. As she comes closer, laughs and says- “The object of your search, Dopdi Mehjen. You asked them to make me up, don’t you want to see how they made me?” (402) she palpably refuses to put on cloths and say’s “what’s the use of clothes? You can strip me but how can you clothe me again? Are you a man?” Here, Mahasweta Devi insists and emphasizes that at this point of the story the male leadership stops and Dopdi ceases to exist as subaltern. After undergoing the trauma of the worst that could happen to a woman she musters up the courage to speak if not for herself at least for her comrades. It seems as if Dopdi dies in her and freaks like a new Dopdi is born out of the ashes. She protests the entire hungry phallus society and contemptuously asks “what more can you do? Come on, counter me- come on, counter me-?” In spite of using the word ‘encounter’ she ask them to ‘counter her’ and her ignorant and indigenous way she uses English language correctly even without knowing it. She challenges her politico sexual enemy Senanayak to encounter her. Quite surprisingly Draupadi pushes Senanayak with her two mangled breast and for the first time Senanayak ‘is afraid to stand before an unarmed target terribly afraid.’ It is ironical to know that Senanayak who at the beginning of the story gave order to make up Dopdi, finds himself badly afraid at the sight of Draupadi’s Crude female sexuality. This is how Draupadi, the subaltern and the most exploited tribal woman represent her woman. Mahasweta Devi Draupadi is a metanarrative, capturing the life and times of its protagonist Dopdi, a Santhal tribal, at the intersection of modern developmental state and subsistent 156 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
subaltern survival. It raises the issues of class, caste and colonialism, and their collusion in the formation of hegemonic patriarchal nation state and how this mainstream formation maintains itself through violent ‘othering’ of the margins. Negotiating various ideological locations – the cultural pressures of her own community, the exigencies of Naxalites activism, and the onslaught of army/state – Draupadi/Dopdi encapsulates the gendered nature of the process of othering, i.e., how the mainstream-margin antagonism uses the female body/sexuality as a site of honour/dishonour to vindicate patriarchy, its values and norms. Mahasweta defines her modus operandi thus: “It is essential to revive existing myths and adapt them to the present times and following the oral tradition, create new ones as well. While I find the existing mythologies epic and ‘puranas’ interesting, I use them with new interpretations”. Mahasweta, as is evident from Dopdi’s transcendence from the sense of bodily shame and her ultimate defiance of Senanayak, uses Dopdi as a trope with rebellious overtones. The author transforms the mythological into a tribal Dopdi, the agent of a potential unmaking of gender and class containment. Draupadi questions this by placing Dopdi first in a comradely activist’s monogamous marriage and then in a situation of multiple rape. The story of Dopdi reminds one of Draupadi in Mahabharata where Duryodhana successfully stripped Draupadi in the Rajya Sabha (King’s council).it is the representation of male stripping female (Dopdi) for their own cause. It is the culmination of her political punishment by the representatives of the law. “She turns her eyes and sees something white. Her own cloth. Nothing else. Suddenly she hopes against hope. Perhaps they have abandoned her. For the foxes to devour. But she hears the scrape of feet. She turns her head, the guard leans on his bayonet and leers at her. Draupadi closes her eyes. She doesn't have to wait long. Again the process of making her begins goes on. The moon vomits a bit of light and goes to sleep. Only the dark remains. A compelled spread-eagled still body. Active pistons of flesh rise and fall rise and fall over it.” As a tribal, Dopdi is not romanticized by the author. Dopdi is not like ancient Draupadi written into the patriarchal and authoritative sacred text as proof of male power. There is nothing ‘historically implausible’ about Dopdi’s attitudes. She emerges as the most powerful ‘subject’ who, still using the language of sexual ‘honour’, can derisively call herself “the object of your search” whom the author can described as a scary object- “an unarmed target?”, an allegory of the woman’s duel against patriarchy in contemporary period is seen which is comparatively different from the historical instant. The central character, a tribal woman called Draupadi, is named, constructed, displaced and silenced. The archetypal Draupadi has been relegated to the position of margin and the tribal Draupadi occupies the position of centre by challenging the male society to cover her up by clothes. Hence the literature embodies the archetypes of essential and universal human experiences. Over the ages diverse images and symbols have developed that convey these 157 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
experiences. Mahasweta Devi has placed her text within the framework of myths in order to provide it with a framework of meaning that is Draupadi stands as an archetype of suffering woman. Dehumanisation Through Language Language has the power to reduce individuals and communities to threats or enemies of the state and strip them of their humanity in order to legitimise violence against them. It is what starts the process of turning people into problems that must be solved, or ‘countered’, as Devi puts it. We see it happening around us, in our country and across the globe, where those in power begin to use language that makes some of our friends, neighbours, families seem less than – and we are urged to stop seeing them as human. Mahasweta Devi explores this aspect skilfully in ‘Draupadi’ where the inability of the State to understand or engage with Dopdi and Dulna’s language works in tandem with the State’s dehumanisation of them through the official language. In other words, what cannot be understood must be translated into terms that are intelligible to the State and its functionaries, and in doing so, Dopdi and Dulna are reduced to ‘a black-skinned couple’ who speak ‘a savage tongue’. The language spoken by Dopdi and Dulna is deemed unintelligible by the local officers, including the Senanayak, who prides himself on learning and understanding his enemy. Their songs and slogans are seen as so indecipherable, that even ‘tribal specialist types’ from Calcutta are unable to decode them. The story itself opens with two liveried officers discussing Dopdi’s name which is confusing to one officer because it is not part of an official list of names: FIRST LIVERY: What’s this, a tribal called Dopdi? The list of names I brought has nothing like it! How can anyone have an unlisted name?’ This inability to understand their language, their names, their music depicts the inability and unwillingness of the State to reach out and communicate or engage with them. Instead, they are studied, objectified and otherised, under the watchful eye of the State, by academic specialists and by the armed forces. This refusal to engage with their language, which is part of the process by which they are dehumanised, is also what reduces them to mere bodies, devoid of histories, stories and emotions. They are the ‘black-skinned bodies’ of nightmares – meant to be captured and countered, nothing more. Silence and The Reclamation of Language It is this process of dehumanisation that is continued when Dopdi is captured. Once captured, she must be ‘countered’, degraded and dehumanised, where ‘your hands are tied behind you…all your bones are crushed, your sex is a terrible wound’. 158 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
In an effort to get her to speak and betray her comrades, Dopdi is raped multiple times by the local officers. Prior to her capture, Dopdi, aware of the torture she is likely to put be through, steels herself to silence. As she is raped, Dopdi refuses to speak, ashamed when a ‘tear trickles out of the corner of her eye’. Later, after the men have left, Devi shifts the gaze to that of Dopdi’s, as she surveys the site of violence – her own body. No language can come close to communicating the horror of what Dopdi has been subjected to. And so, Devi forces us to remain with the image of that violence, describing in painful detail, the body of Dopdi after she has been ‘countered’- ‘her breasts are bitten raw, the nipples torn’, ‘her vagina is bleeding’, and her ‘thigh and pubic hair matted with dry blood’. Here, Mahasweta Devi invests Dopdi’s body with the history, the narrative, that is being denied by the gaze of the officers. Dopdi’s act of refusing to respond or react to the violence being inflicted on her body is an act of rebellion. Through a language that is visceral, Devi captures the violence the State inflicts on Dopdi’s body in its efforts to turn her from a rebellious body to a pliant and submissive one. And, it is through the same language that Devi captures Dopdi’s defiance and subversion as a woman, specifically, a tribal woman who is part of the Naxalite movement. After her rape, the officers ask Dopdi to get dressed before they can take her to the Senanayak. She walks out, naked, bruised and wounded, refusing to hide the evidence of brutality and unwilling to be shamed. This disturbs the officers and the Senanayak who are unsure of what to do with this woman who forces them to confront their own depravity. Her disrobing stands in stark contrast to that of her namesake in the Mahabharata. She stands, without a saviour, disrobed and brutalised, but unwilling to bear the shame for a violation committed upon her. She confronts the Senanayak, laughing. Her laughter, bursting forth from her bloodied lips, continues to be unintelligible to the officers, especially the Senanayak: ‘Draupadi’s black body comes even closer. Draupadi shakes with an indomitable laughter that Senanayak simply cannot understand. Her ravaged lips bleed as she begins laughing. Draupadi wipes the blood on her palm and says in a voice that is as terrifying, sky splitting, and sharp as her ululation, what’s the use of clothes? You can strip me, but how can you clothe me again? Are you a man?’ Her laughter and her blood challenge the Senanayak, daring him to do his worst, communicating her refusal to be shamed into submission. Her challenge inverts the dynamic of power and renders the Senanayak powerless. As she bursts into language, the Senanayak find himself bereft of language, too scared to speak at the end – ‘and for the first time Senanayak is afraid to stand before an unarmed target, terribly afraid’. 159 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Themes of the story Insubordination to Male Chauvinism The female characters in Devi's stories have a notion of defiance for the patriarchal society. In the story Why Why Girl, Moyna is a five years old girl who doesn't understand gender discrimination, so she keeps asking questions to her school teacher. In the story of Draupadi, the protagonist Dopadi is a member of a rebel group, and she doesn't fear the male chauvinistic society. Subaltern Feminism Feminism is the key theme of the stories of Mahasweta Devi. She always focuses on the problems and challenges of subaltern women. In the story of Draupadi, Devi has illustrated the tragic story of a subaltern woman who faces derogatory treatment from the police in the name of interrogation only because she was a female rioter. Tribal Community The center of work of Devi is usually on tribal areas and tribal women. She gives details on how society suppresses women through her stories. The Why Why Girl is the story of a tribal girl, Moyna's parents don't allow her to go to school. She also does house chores for the landlord of the village because she is from the tribal community. 7.3.1 Relevance of The Story in Today’s World The story is stripped away from the Mahabharata’s grand narrative and royal attributes and situated in Champabhumi, a village in West Bengal. The ‘cheelharan’ of Draupadi is reconstructed in Devi’s story, subverting the narrative where Draupadi is rescued by a man, Lord Krishna. Instead, in Devi’s narrative, Dopdi is not rescued, yet she continues to exercise her agency by refusing to be a victim, leaving the armed men “terribly afraid”. Dopdi is a woman of strong mind and will as she defied the shame associated with rape and sexual abuse, which is extremely relevant to India today. Especially in the onset of the #MeToo movement where many brave women came forward with their stories. The character of Dopdi allows us to view the subaltern’s identity vis-à-vis the hegemonic structures seen through the policemen and Officer Senanayek. Thus, Dopdi’s body becomes a site of both the exertion of authoritarian power and of gendered resistance. Dopdi bears the torture as she is raped by many men through the encouragement of the voice of another man Arijit, that urges her to save her comrades and not herself. However, the attack on her body fades this male authority’s voice as she candidly reacts to the police. Her refusal to be clothed goes against the phallocentric power, and the exploitation of her body gives her the agency to step away from the hegemonic patriarchy of the policemen. 160 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Devi illustrates how any conflict or war results in the women’s body being the primary targets of attack by men. In the contexts of both the Naxalite movement and the Bangladesh Liberation war, both men and women are tortured, but it is much worse for women as they additionally undergo sexual abuse. Thus with Spivak’s concepts on the subaltern in mind, through Dopdi, Devi represents the gendered subaltern subject who exists at the periphery of society and dares to go against the existing patriarchal structures. Spivak has shown concern regarding the representation of the subaltern in the mainstream discourse on the basis that the subaltern cannot be represented; only re-presented. However, Devi’s use of polyphony not just re-presents the subaltern, it also explores the politics around the category of the ‘subaltern.’ In Draupadi, Devi presents a strong woman who despite being marginalized and exploited, transgresses conventional sexual and societal standards. Dopdi subverts the physicality of her body from powerlessness into powerful resistance. She does not represent the tribal woman by romanticizing her depiction of Dopdi but instead realistically re-presents her through simple language and complex emotions. Draupadi recognizes a woman’s body as an asset through which they can resist the socio-political objectification of their bodies and overcome oppression. 7.4 SUMMARY Devi situates her story against the Naxalite movement (1967-71), the Bangladesh Liberation War (1971) of West Bengal and the ancient Hindu epic of Mahabharata, engaging with the complex politics of Bengali identity and Indian nationhood. The tribal uprising against wealthy landlords brought upon the fury of the government which led to Operation Bakuli that sought to kill the so-called tribal rebels. Draupadi is a story about Dopdi Mehjen, a woman who belongs to the Santhal tribe of West Bengal. She is a Robin Hood-like figure who with her husband, Dhulna, murders wealthy landlords and use their wells, which is the primary source of water for the village. The government attempts to subjugate these tribal rebel groups through many means: kidnapping, murder, rape. Dopdi is captured by Officer Senanayak who instructs the army officers to rape her to extract information about the rebel uprising. Ironically, the same officers who violated her body, insist that she covers up once she is ‘done with’. But, Dopdi rips off her clothes and walks towards officer Senanayak naked. Thigh and pubic hair matted with dry blood. Senanayak is shocked by her defiance as she stands before him “with her hand on her hip”, she pushes him with her breast and tell that she is not ashamed because she doesn’t think that any one is man here. 161 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
A strong man becomes terrified by an unarmed and unprotected woman. Draupadi didn’t behaved as a victim and helpless instead she used her body as a weapon and stood to recue herself alone as no divine Krishna came to save her unlike the Draupadi of the Mahabharata. This was her real victory over the age-old patriarchy and the male brutality done on her. 7.5KEYWORDS Naxalite - a member of an armed revolutionary group advocating Maoist communism. Phallocentric -focused on or concerned with the phallus or penis as a symbol of male dominance. Hegemony- control by one country, organization, etc. over other countries, etc. within a particular group Comrades -a person who fights on the same side as you in a war Patriarchy -a social system that gives power and control to men rather than women Rougue-Villan Tribal- Member of tribal community Tari- A very cheap liquor 7.6LEARNING ACTIVITY 1. Study notable literary work like Hajar Churashir Maa, Rudali, and Aranyer Adhikar of Mahasweta Devi and try to critically analysis the writing style and techniques. __________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ 2. Mahasweta Devi was a writer who defied Injustice. Give the suitable examples from her various writing work to prove the statement. __________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ 162 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
7.7UNIT END QUESTIONS A. Descriptive Questions Short Questions 1. List all the important characters of the story ‘Draupadi’ 2. Write a short note on the writing style of Mahasweta devi in ‘Draupadi’ 3. What is the theme of the story’ Draupadi’? 4. What is the background of the story? 5. Make a note of various critical issues raised in the story’ Draupadi’ Long Questions 1. Draw character Sketch of Draupadi by Mahasweta Devi. 2. Discuss the relevance of the storyline in today’s world. 3. Comment upon the character of Senan Nayak as a Villian of the story “ Draupadi” 4. Highlight the similarity in the character of dopdi of the story and Draupadi of Mahabharata. 5. Mahasweta Devi is a feminist writer. Justify on the basis of her work ‘Draupadi’. 6. Describe the scene when Dopadi was called by Sena Nayak. B. Multiple Choice Questions 1. In which language “Draupadi“by Mahasweta devi was written? a. Bengali b. Hindi c. English d. None of these 2. Mahasweta Devi was well known for her a. Marxist feminist ideological 163 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
b. Communist ideology 164 c. All of the above d. None of these 3. Who was SenaNayak? a. Army officer b. Police man c. Politician d. None of these 4. “Draupadi “ is the part of which collection of Mahasweta Devi a. Agnigarbha b. The Salt c. Yashodhara d. Written in tears 5. Mahasweta devi was a reknowned writer was which language a. Bengali b. Hindi c. Urdu d. Punjabi 6. Who gave the title ‘Draupadi‘to dopadi? a. Dulna Majhi b. Sena Nayak c.Mushai Tudu CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
d.Mushai Tudu’s wife Answers 1-a, 2-a, 3-a,4-a,5-a, 6 -d 7.8 REFERENCES Reference’s book Abrams, M. H. and Geoffrey Galt Harpham. A Handbook of Literary Terms. New Delhi: Cengage Learning, 2009. Print. Bertens, Hans. Literary Theory: The Basics. London: Routledge, 2001. Print. Chowdhury, Anupma. “The Other Side of Silence: Re-Positioning Draupadi in the Short Stories of Mahasweta Devi and Shashi Despande.” The Indian Journal of English Studies. 46 of: Association for English Studies of India,2009. 80-91. Print. https://www.gradesaver.com/mahasweta-devi-short-stories/study-guide/summary https://feminisminindia.com/2019/02/08/draupadi-review-mahasweta-devi/ Devi, Mahasweta. ‘Draupadi’ in Breast Stories. Translated by Gayatri Chakravarty Spivak. Calcutta: Seagull Books, 2010. 165 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
UNIT – 8: FAIZ AHMED FAIZ “DON’T ASK ME FOR THAT LOVE AGAIN”, “A PRISON EVENING”, “WE WHO WERE EXECUTED”, “IN SEARCH OF VANISHED BLOOD” Structure 8.0 Learning Objective 8.1 Introduction 8.2 Literary Criticism 8.2.1 “Don’t Ask me for that love again” 8.2.2 A Prison Evening 8.2.3 We who were executed 8.2.4 In Search of Vanished Blood 8.3 Summary 8.4 Keywords 8.5Learning Activity 8.6 Unit End Questions 8.7 References 8.0 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this unit, you will be able to: Explain the work and writing technique of Faiz Ahmed Faiz. The analysis and summary of four poems of Faiz Ahmed Faiz , “Don’t ask me for that love again’, “A Prison evening” , “We who were executed” ,”In search of vanished blood” Answer the examination related questions 166 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
8.1 INTRODUCTION Figure 8.1. Faiz Ahmed Faiz (13 feb 1911- 20 nov 1984) Faiz Ahmad Faiz was a prominent Pakistani poet, and author. He usually wrote in Urdu and Punjabi language. He was one of the most distinguished writers in Pakistan of the Urdu language. Faiz was an affirmed Marxist, and was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize by the Soviet Union in 1962. Faiz Ahmed Faiz was born on 13 February 1911, in Sialkot, BritishIndia, now part of Pakistan. His childhood was a privileged one. He was born to wealthy landowners Sultan Fatima and Sultan Muhammad Khan. Soon after his birth his father passed away in 1913. Sultan Muhammad Khan was a well-known lawyer and a part of an elite literary circle.Allam Iqbal, the national poet of Pakistan, was also the member of this group. In 1916, Faiz did his primary education fromMaulvi Ibrahim Sialkot, a famous regional school He was admitted to the Scotch Mission High School for his higher educationwhere he studied Urdu, Persian, and Arabic. He completed his Bachelor's degree in Arabic, and master’s degree in English, in 1932 from the Government College in Lahore. He also holds the second master’s degree in Arabic from the Oriental College in Lahore. After graduating 167 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
in 1935, Faiz started a teaching career at M.A.O. College in Amritsar and later on at Hailey College of Commerce in Lahore. Faiz Ahmad Faiz was among the most a prominent shayar. He always had revolutionary views due to which he faced political repression. Faiz was his pseudonym. He was the protagonist ofthe Progressive Movement in India in 1936. Through his poetry, Faiz beautifully amalgamated the grief of love with sorrows of life. The youth of that era directly resonated with his perspective. His first collection was ‘Naqsh-e-Faryadi’ which was published in 1939 after that Faiz became a rising star in literary world. In 1940, Faiz took up the position at the Hailey College of Commerce, Lahore, as lecturer.During this period the World War was at its peak and countries were unifying against fascism, subsequently Faiz also joined army. Faiz took up a position in the Pakistan Times in 1947. After which he became editor of “Imroz” and bagged appreciation for journalism too. After the formation of Pakistan as an independent country, he started working for the rights of labour and was appointed Vice President of Trade Union Federation. He played the part as a spokesperson for labour in the I.L.O. Geneva Conference. On March 9, 1951, Faizwas arrested and imprisoned by police for the involvement in Rawalpindi case under the Pakistan Safety Order Act. His second collection ‘Dast-e-saba’ remember his time of confinement in Hyderabad jail. Faiz began his poetry with ghazals but after the Rawalpindi controversy his nazm shifted towards a progressive outlook and he soon excelled the genre. He has a huge fan following in India, Pakistan as in the western countries. His poetry and artwork knows no boundry. His ghazals have been translated into several Indian and foreign languages to reach a wider audience. Faiz's early poems had been conventional, light-hearted treatises on love and prettiness of beloved, but while in Lahore he began to expand into politics, community, andtherefore the thematic interconnectedness he felt was crucial in both life and poetry. It was also during this era that he married Alys George, a British expatriate and convert to Islam, with whom he had two daughters. In 1947, after the partition of India, Faiz left military and became the editor of The Pakistan Times, a socialist English-language newspaper. On March 9, 1951, Faiz was arrested with a gang of army officers under the security Act, and charged with the failed coup attempt that was referred as the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case. He was given death penalty and was imprisoned four years in prison before being released. Two of his poetry collections, Dast-e Saba and Zindan Namah, focus on his time spent in prison with his inmates, which he considered an opportunity to see the world in a new perspective. After he was released, he settled in Pakistan, and was appointed to the 168 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
National Council of the Arts by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's government. He earned the Lenin Peace Prize in 1963 for some of his poems which were translated into Russian and were a great success. In 1964, after settled in Karachi, he wasappointed asprincipal of Abdullah Haroon College. along with which he was also working as an editor and writer for several well-known magazines and newspapers. He also served the Department of Information during the 1965 war between India and Pakistan, and wrote harshpoems as the outrage over the bloodshed between Pakistan, India, and what later converted to Bangladesh. However, when Bhutto was overthrown by Zia Ul-Haq, Faiz was forced into exile in Beirut, Lebanon. In Lebanon he edited the magazine Lotus, and continued writing poems in Urdu. Until1982, he loved in exile. Throughout his turbulent and chaotic life, Faiz continued writing and publishing his work and became the best-selling modern Urdu poet in both India and Pakistan. While his work is written in quite strict diction, his poems carrya casual, conversational tone, creating tension between the elite and the common class of the society. This writing technique of his was like of Ghalib, the renowned 19th century Urdu poet. Faiz is especially remembered for his poems in traditional Urdu language, such as the ghazal, and his significant ability to explore the conventional thematic expectations to include socio-political issues. Many of his poetriesabide the techniques of the conventional ghazal, the classical sort of traditional Urdu poetry, which has been influenced by Persian literature. But his work revolutionizes the conventions, extending the meanings of the many traditional terms. For example, He often addresses poems to his “beloved”, a central word in the ghazal vocabulary. It refers to both a person and also to the people as anentire entity. He imagine the individual as existing within a wider context: “The self of a person, despite all its loves, troubles, joys and pains, is a tiny, limited and humble thing.” He took his last breath on 20 nov 1984 at the age of 73, at Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan, shortly after receiving a nomination for the Nobel Prize. 8.2 LITERARY CRITICISM 8.2.1 Don’t Ask Me for That Love Again That which then was ours, my love, don’t ask me for that love again. The world then was gold, burnished with light – 169 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
and only because of you. That’s what I had believed. 170 How could one weep for sorrows other than yours? How could one have any sorrow but the one you gave? So what were these protests, these rumours of injustice? A glimpse of your face was evidence of springtime. The sky, whenever I looked, was nothing but your eyes. If you’d fall into my arms, Fate would be helpless. All this I’d thought, all this I’d believed. But there were other sorrows, comforts other than love. The rich had cast their spell on history: dark centuries had been embroidered on brocades and silks. Bitter threads began to unravel before me as I went into alleys and in open markets saw bodies plastered with ash, bathed in blood. I saw them sold and bought, again and again. This too deserves attention. I can’t help but look back when I return from those alleys – what should one do? And you are still so ravishing – what should I do? CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
There are other sorrows in this world, comforts other than love. Don’t ask me, my love, for that love again. (Translated from Urdu by Agha Shahid Ali) It illustrates the tussle between love and patriotism going on insidespeaker’s heart. In this poem, he rejects and disowns the romantic love of the ‘beloved’ for contemplation of the misery of the world. The poem’s focal point is patriotism, whichleads Faiza to the consideration of the misery he saw around him related it to the ongoing struggle for independence in his homeland. The poem can be read in two parts. The first consist of a couplet (two-line stanza) and is followed by two longer stanzas. In this part, the poet addresses his ‘beloved’. He asks his ‘beloved’ not to expect the kind of love that he used to expressed earlier.He narrates and describes the relationship between this old lover and the speaker; the lovers lived, at that time, in a world populated only by each other. In poet’s life the love for his beloved was the central priority and nothing holds more important for him than her lady love.It alsoshows the way he had viewed ‘life’. Earlier his life looked very young and blooming because of the love, her beloved had filled in. For him his ‘beloved’ was the source of his happiness in life and he could not tolerateany kind of distress and parting away from his beloved. The poet says that the beauty of his beloved provides everlasting youth in the spring. He compares his world with gold and full of radiance of love. The reason was the existence of the deep love poet had for his beloved. He knew no reason to be sad and to be insorrow. The only thing which could make him sad was separation from his love. The poet’s life was enlightened with the mere look of his beloved. He desired nothing but the company of his love. Eyes of his beloved is being compared to the sky full of stars embracing her was all what he desired from life. In the second half of the stanza, the poet confesses that now his outlook toward love has undergone a drastic transformation.Henowrealizes that there are other sufferings of the world besides the agony of love, and there are other kinds of solace in addition to the solace of love. In the second part, he elucidates the ‘agonies and other kinds of solace in addition to the solace of love that demands his attention. It begins with the same couplet asking his ‘beloved’ not to expect the same kind of love that he had for her once. 171 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Thispart highlights the change in their relationship, truth and reality of the world creeps into poet’s life. He could no longer cocoon himself in the romanticworld. Now theworld knows grief and sorrow other than those of love and pleasure beyond those of romance. It is beautifully depicted that life is not all about one’s person’s relationship, but a vast global empire full of emotions. He mentions a handful of terrible and undesirable events which open his eyes to the reality of theworld. Poets thrown some hints towards the socio-political unrest created in the country and injustice done by the rich and affluent people which involved bloodshed too. This drastically changes perspective of the poet. The rosy picture of the world d changes into a gloomy place full of evil things which deserves far more attention and consideration of ours.They are brutality woven in silk, satin and gold lace, and are dark curses of countless ages and human bodies sold in street and market-place are smeared in blood.He is referring towardslavery, slave trade and prostitution. They also demand his attention. He says that even though her beauty compels his attention there are other kinds of bliss besides the bliss of her beauty. In the last few lines of the poem, the speaker emphasized that the world is much greater than the sum of a couple's lost love; and it is filled with despair and sufferings all around us, and so the speaker confesses his beloved his inability to give the love as before, “Do not demand that love which can be no more.” There are much greater and serious issues prevailing in the society which demand our attention and which can still be revolutionized and improved. He concludes in the second part again with the same couplet asking his beloved not to demand the same kind of attention that once he had for his beloved. Theusage of the word, ‘beloved’ can be interpreted as his ‘muse’, his country, or his concept of beauty or social change. This poem is considered to be one of the most thought-provoking creation of his and it is first experiment of the poet to blend the love for the ‘beloved’ into love for humanity, of turning the pain of separation into pain for all those who suffered under the dark savage and barbaric acts of the privileged and powerful people towards the weaker section of the society for spells of uncounted centuries. 8.2.2 A Prison Evening Each star a rung, night comes down the spiral staircase of the evening. The breeze passes by so very close as if someone just happened to speak of love. In the courtyard, 172 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
the trees are absorbed refugees embroidering maps of return on the sky. On the roof, the moon - lovingly, generously - is turning the stars into a dust of sheen. From every corner, dark-green shadows, in ripples, come towards me. At any moment they may break over me, like the waves of pain each time I remember this separation from my lover. This thought keeps consoling me: though tyrants may command that lamps be smashed in rooms where lovers are destined to meet, they cannot snuff out the moon, so today, nor tomorrow, no tyranny will succeed, no poison of torture makes me bitter, if just one evening in prison can be so strangely sweet, if just one moment anywhere on this earth. Prison Poetry by Faiz Ahmed Faiz On the night of 9 march1951, the renowned twentieth century Urdu poet Faiz Ahmed Faiz, along with Syed Sajjad Zaher, Major General Akbar Khan, and several Pakistani ‘s Army 173 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
officers, was arrested for involvement in the conspiracy to overthrow the government of Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan. At this time Faiz was the editor of Pakistani Times, while Sajjad Zaheer held the position of General Secretary of Pakistani Communist Party. The trial of this case was the most controversial and famous in Pakistani’s political history as the “Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case” Faiz is commonly termed as” protest poet”. His uniqueness lies in his facility for manipulation of tenth century traditional Persian poetic imagery, using the poet’s tool of symbolism and ambiguity to mask political innuendo, while the same time losing nothing of the traditional feature of elegance and melancholy. He has not however, written a great deal about what K.K.Khullar describes as the most “ important event “of the poet’s life, the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case. Faiz’s fellow prisoners have described conditions inside their various prisons. But no historians have recorded the full details of the conspiracy case. For this reason,several attemptswere made to draw relevant details, recognizing that full comprehension of the trial has eluded the author due to court proceedings having been held in camera. In March 1951, Faiz’s brilliant journalist career was suddenly disrupted when he along with the number of military officers and two leaders of communist party of Pakistan. Were taken into custody pending charges related to a plot to overthrow the government, writes Herbert Feldman, who dismisses the case permanently stays that “It is an event which had largely disappeared from people’s consciousness and it has long ceased to have any importance” Faiz’s poetry has long reflected a syncretism spirit, across place and time. It occupies an honourable place among many local cultural traditions and also beyond. Many great poets of the sub continents were his sour of inspiration. He was also deeply influenced by British poets like W H Auden. He had a shocking resemblance with Noon Meem Rashid and Meeraji amongst his contemporaries but was greatly inspired by the writing techniquesof classical poets like Ghalib, Mir, Sauda and Daagh, etc. He praised and appreciated Dr. MuhammadIqbal and thought that Iqbal never got the status he deserved for his literary work. In his praise, Faiz has written a poem, had an overwhelming effect on his poetic growth. Faiz’s poetic diction is purely classical but he was also largely influenced by the western free verse. Some of his rare gems are in blank verse. Moreover, Faiz’s poetry revolved around the criticaland controversialpolitical events and failures of governments to heed the problems of the downtrodden, which gave a revolutionarytone to his poetry. His poems adapted the forms, images and themes of Urdu poetry to criticize and educate the readers against the oppressive political regimes prevailing in the country and the sub-continent. 174 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
The poem “A Prison Evening” is written by Faiz Ahmad Faiz, originally in Urdu under the name “Zindan ki ekesham.Due to his leftist listening as involvement in Rawalpindi Conspiracy, he was jailed in the 1950s.The poem tells us about the experience and dealing with his emotional state during his incarceration. It also depicts how the poet interprets the different visuals /images he sees there. In the first stanza of the poem, the poet describes the night spent in the jail. He says that just like a spiral staircase the night along with stars “comes down “i.e., it is going to be dawn. He can feel the breeze blowing and brings with it a romantic feeling as it seems to him that someone has whispered the word a “word of love”. In the courtyard, the gathering ground of most prisoners while in jail, there is a tree which seems to be surrounded by refugees. In this case these refugees are prisoners who have been extradited from their relative nations for their crimes/or believes. All the inmates are away from their native land. With his head drooped, he is busy in observing and interpreting “images and pictures “formed in his surroundings.The refugees crowd the tree because the tree is a symbol of life which provides the prisoners with the hope needed to survive their imprisonment.The sky represents the boundless opportunity which the prisoners embroider it with their hopes to make it back home. When the exquisite moonlight falls on the crest.i.e., top line of the building’s roof also glitters. Due to the gracious moonlight, the brightness has converted into “dust”. The blue colour of the sky resonates with the light of the light and the stars. The images of “dark blue shadows “coming from green corners wavers around as if they would arise grief of separation of his loved ones in his heart. In the second stanza, the thought of contentment crosses his mind as he has not given up his rebellious thought. The harsh life of the prison can't make him mentally weak and still, he found, that it wasn't that bad there. He is confident that the “tyranny’s poison” would not be able to succeed either today nor tomorrow in their pursuits. Even if the tyrant regime destroys the lamp of the room where the lovers planned to meet, theycannotextinguish the moon to prevent it from conferring light on lovers. The lovers are destined to meet and they will reunite despite of all the hurdles and troubles created by the tyrants.Poet emphasizes that no poison of torture or afflict can stop him from remembering his love ones. Even in the tormentor’senvironment of the prison seems to be sweet for him because in his mind a romantic mood is recreated. Hefinds that the nature is sympathising with him while the humans are being ruthless and brutal. 8.2.3 We Who Were Executed I longed for your lips, dreamed of their roses: I was hanged from the dry branch of the scaffold. 175 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
I wanted to touch your hands, their silver light: I was murdered in the half-light of dim lanes. And there where you were crucified, so far away from my words, you still were beautiful: colour kept clinging to your lips– rapture was still vivid in your hair– light remained silvering in your hands. When the night of cruelty merged with the roads you had talked, I came as far as my feet could bring me, on my lips the phrase of a song, my heart lit up only by sorrow. This sorrow was my testimony to your beauty– Look! I remained a witness till the end, I who was killed in the darkest lanes. It’s true– that not to reach you was fate– but who’ll deny that to love you was entirely in my hands? So why complain if these matters of desire brought me inevitably to the execution grounds? 176 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Why complain? Holding up our sorrows as banners, new lovers will emerge from the lanes where we were killed and embark, in caravans, on those highways of desire. It’s because of them that we shortened the distances of sorrow, it’s because of them that we went out to make the world our own, we who were murdered in the darkest lanes. Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg were American citizens who were convicted of spying on behalf of the Soviet Union. The couple was accused of providing top-secret information about talked propulsion engines and valuable nuclear weapon designs at that time the United States was the only country in the world with nuclear weapons. Convicted of espionage in 1951, they were executed by the federal government of the United States in 1953 in the Sing correctional facility, becoming the first American civilians to be executed for such charges and the first to suffer that penalty during peacetime. When Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed in 1953 by the US government on the charge of being Soviet spies, Faiz was inspired to write a poem. But rather than write it as a protest against the injustice, he framed it as a lyrical tribute to their love, as they stubbornly refused to betray each other despite inducements, threats, incarceration, and ultimately, execution. His tribute is heartbreakingly titled Hum jo tareek raahon mein maare gaye (We who were executed on dark highways). The poem comprises of five stanzas. In the first two stanzas poet gives the indirect reference of a judicial assainsation of the couple Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, by so called developed and civilised country. The speaker craves for the lips of his beloved which he compares to red pretty roses, but he was executed on the dry branch. Here dry branch signifies the lifeless and dead judiciary of the country. He wanted to experience the touch of his beloved but was murdered in dim light. Dim light refers to the dark and partial judicial system,according to which they were declared as spy and traitors. His beloved was also killed and was mercilessly taken away from the speaker. Speaker still find her pretty and praise her beauty. The next two paragraphs describe the unfortunate and gruesome event of the execution of the speaker but his heart was still clanged to his beloved and cannot stop himself from loving her. He accepts the fate of being executed by the blind law and order of the 177 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
country.The false allegation has brought him to the execution ground but the decision to love his beloved was still under his jurisdiction. In the last stanza, speaker seems to be hopeful and expectant of some good and new beginning. He is not ready to indulge himself in sorrow and regret indeed is buoyant and optimistic to mark a new a change and threw a positive message forothers. 8.2.4 In Search Of Vanished Blood There’s no sign of blood, not anywhere. I’ve searched everywhere. The executioner’s hands are clean, his nails transparent. The sleeves of each assassin are spotless. No sign of blood: no trace of red, not on the edge of the knife, none on the point of the sword. The ground is without stains, the ceiling white. The blood which has disappeared without leaving a trace isn’t part of written history: who will guide me to it? It wasn’t spilled in service of emperors — — it earned no honor,had no wish granted. It wasn’t offered in rituals of sacrifice — — no cup of absolution holds it in a temple. It wasn’t shed in any battle — — no one calligraphed it on banners of victory. But, unheard, it still kept crying out to be heard. No one had the time to listen, no one the desire. It kept crying out, this orphan blood, but there was no witness. No case was filed. From the beginning this blood was nourished only by dust. Then it turned to ashes, left no trace, became food for dust. — Translated by Agha Shahid Ali 178 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
This poem was written by Faiz Ahmed Faiz originally in Urdu with the name “Lahoo ka suraagh. He is referring to the spate of political murders that went down in the search for power in a newly formed nation-state of Pakistan after the division of British India. This poem clearly throw light on the early blood-letting during Ayyub Khan’s elections in Karachi. In n 1964, President Ayyub Khan had been confident in his apparent popularity and saw the deep divisions within the political opposition which ultimately led him to announce the presidential elections in 1965. He earned the nomination from Pakistan Muslim League (PML) and was shocked to see when Fatima Jinnah earned the nomination from the Combined Opposition Parties Fatima Jinnah had gained a lot of support from Karachi, Lahore, and various parts in West Pakistan and East Pakistan as opposed to President Ayyub Khan. Jinnah targeted the Indus Waters Treaty and his over-reliance on the United States and troubled relations with the Soviet Union. During the elections, President Ayyub earned notoriety when his son, Gohar Ayyub Khan, was named in media for his involvement in authorizing political murders in Karachi, particularly those who supported Jinnah. These political murders create a wide dispute and unrest in the country. When Ayyub Khan declared himself as the President, the country saw many major reforms, industrialization and fast rate of economic growth. There was no shortage of the high-profile admirers. From de Gaulle of France to President Johnson of the United States, Western leaders were singing praise for the economic growth in Pakistan. Even Robert McNamara, the then World Bank president, proclaimed that Pakistan under General Ayyub was “one of the greatest successes of development in the world”. However, experts were quick to point out that de Gaulle, Johnson, McNamara and others focused solely on growth and ignored the distribution of wealth resulting in income inequalities that sowed the seeds of discontent, violence, and ultimately caused the splitting of East and West Pakistan. It was impossible for anintellectual, vigilant and a creativesoul to be unaffected by the situation in Karachi. It becomes the responsibility of the writer to record this for posterity. Faiz Ahmed Faiz expressed his agony and anger through this poem “Lahoo ka Suraagh”,translated in English by Agha Sahid Ali with the name “In Search of Vanished Blood”. In the first few lines of the poem, the speaker speaks about his agony and sheer frustration when he is not able to find any sign of blood of the innocent victims. As some influential and high-class politicians were involved in the case, the executionerswere passed clean and clear as no proof and the witness of thebrutal crime was found. 179 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Then, the speaker says that blood of the poor and helpless people has gone astray as if nothing has happened. This did not happen in a day, a month, a year. This is the harvest of the dragon’s teeth which had been sown over six decades. No amount of name calling, finger pointing, breast- beating can detract from a flawed history of governance. A new nation was being established on the cessation of naive people by ignoring their needs, rights and wishes. The people who became the scapegoat for the selfish political intentions of some, earned no identity and no respect in the history of the country. Their no last wish was granted nor their sacrifice wasvalued. The judicial law and order also turned blind for the injustice done to them. Poet further adds that it was linguistic, sectarian and a dirty game played by the agencies and only affected the poor; those living in the affluent residents remain safe. The people who died were the poverty stricken section of a newly formed and under developed nation who were struggling to survive. The last few lines are the most heart-rending line which tells that after the death their blood got lost in the dust and ashes.Their existence was completely vanished at the same time when the so called “new nation” was proudly claiming its existence. 8.3 SUMMARY The poem “Don’t ask me for that love again” depicts the struggle going on in Faiz’s heart, between love and patriotism. In this poem, he abjures the romantic love of the ‘beloved’ for contemplation of the misery of the world. The poem is a landmark for it leads 1 Faiz to the consideration of the misery he saw around him related to the freedom struggle in his homeland. The poem can be read in two parts. The first part begins with a couplet or a two-line stanza and is followed by two longer stanzas. In this part, the poet addresses his ‘beloved’. He asks his ‘beloved’ not to expect the kind of love that he had once shown her. In the next stanza, he narrates and describes the way he had viewed ‘life’. In that stage of his life, ‘life’ looked very young and blooming because of his love for his beloved. Since his ‘beloved’ was the source of his happiness in life, he could not withstand any kind of suffering afflicting his beloved In the poem 'A Prison Evening', the poet describes the arrival of dawn. When the sun sets the stars are appearing little by little like each rung of a staircase. The dawn may be the darkest days of the poet in the prison. But he finds beauty even in his darkest times. The wind that blows, he thinks, to be nature whispering something about love. On that serene night he tries to think about his beloved. He longs to be with her. But the prison walls are constraints that prevent him from the physical presence of his beloved. But in his mind he creates a romantic mood in that eerie prison night. He consoles himself that even though people can put off lamps to prevent lovers from 180 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
meeting, they cannot prevent the moon from spreading light for them. He finds that the nature sympathizes with him while they are being cruel The poem “We who were executed” poem depicts the protest of judicial assaination by a so called civilized and developed country - though there have been plenty others since and earlier, where the State has manipulated the Judiciary for its benefit. It was translated in English by Agha Sahid Ali. The poem “In Search of Vanished Blood” is as much a search for roots, brotherhood, and camaraderie as it is a despairing cry for what is going on around us and what is possible to come. It seems that the poet has written the poem in despair of the injustice and unethical happenings around him, in which the poor, helpless or less powerful are dominated or thrashed by the powerful ones. According to the poet the society or the country is divided into two kinds of people, the inferior ones who are born to be controlled and ill-treated by the other section of the society who consider themselves to be the mighty ones. No law or justice can give punishment to the guilty and they keep on doing the same and no one is bothered to hear or help the cry of the weaker section of the society. 8.4 KEYWORDS Assai- a person who kills a famous or important person for money or for political reasons Absolution- (especially in the Christian Church) a formal statement that a person is forgiven for what he or she has done wrong. Orphan- a child deprived by death of one or usually both parents Dawn- The first day of light Inmates- a person who lives in a specific place, especially someone who's confined there, like a prisoner. 8.5 LEARNING ACTIVITY 1. Read the biography of Faiz Ahmed Faiz and try to understand how his emotions are expressed through his writing works. _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ 181 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
2. Make a note of famous poetic work of Faiz Ahmed Faiz like Speak, Highway, The Day of death etc and evaluate the different poetic techniques and styles adopted by the poet. _______________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________ 8.6UNIT END QUESTIONS A. Descriptive Question: Short Questions 1. How is the speaker of the poem ‘Don’t ask me for that love again’ affected by the harsh realities of life? 2. Write the summary of the poem ‘A Prison Evening’. 3. How does the responsibility of the speaker as a human being change his perception of love in the poem? 4. The suffering of humanity is much greater than the love of his beloved”. Explain with reference to the poem ‘Don’t ask me for that love again’. 5. Comment on the speaker’s interest, feelings and ideas in the poem ‘We who were executed’. Long Questions 1. What type of difference prevailing in society does the poet want to highlight in the poem ‘In search of Vanished blood’? 2. Comment on the conditions under which the poet has written the poem. ‘In search of Vanished blood’. 3. What is the poem ‘We who were executed ‘all about? 4. What transformation in the priorities of the speaker do you see in the poem’Don’t ask me for that love again’? 5. Write the summary of the poem” A Prison Evening” B. Multiple Choice Questions: 1In the poem ‘Don’ts’s ask me for that love again’ whom does the poet is taking to? a. His friend b. His beloved c. His brother 182 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
d. None of these 183 2. In the poem’ A prison evening’ Who is the poet missing? a. His countrymen b. His beloved c. His near and dear one d. His inmates 3. Faiz Ahmed Faiz was born at... a. Delhi b. Sialkot c. Agra d. None of these 4. In the poem ‘We who were executed ‘ the theme is a. Judicial assai nation protest b. Romance c. Anger for crime d. None of these 5. What is the time of day referred in poem ’A prison evening’ a. Dusk b. Dawn c. Night d. Afternoon Answers CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
1-b), 2- c), 3-b), 4-a), 5-b) 8.7 REFERENCES Reference’s book The Colours of My Heart: Selected Poems. By Faiz Ahmed Faiz ... Naqsh-E-Fariyadi+Daste-Saba+ZindanNama (Faiz Collection Vol) Saare Sukhan Humare. Faiz Ke Aas Paas by Prof Sahar Ansari... Faiz, A Poet of Peace from Pakistan by Khalid Sohail, Ashfaq Hussain https://www.dawn.com/news/654479/of-karachi-faizs-lahoo-ka-suragh-and-culled- creativity https://medium.com/@peter_vas/in-search-of-vanished-blood-faiz-ahmed-faiz- e165b9987c4e 184 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
UNIT-9:NAMDEO DHASAL. “HUNGER”, “I SLEW THE SEVEN HORSES OF THE CHARIOT OF THE SUN” Structure 9.0 Learning Objectives 9.1 Introduction of the Author 9.2 About the Poem: Hunger 9.3 About the Poem: I slew the Seven Horses of the Sun 9.4 Summary 9.5 Keywords 9.6 Learning Activity 9.7 Unit End Questions 9.8 References 9.0 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this unit, you should be able to: A brief study of Namdeo Dhasal’s life as a poet Introduce the poetry of Namdeo Dhasal Explain the thinking behind the Dalit Literature and poems hunger and I Slew the seven horses of SUN. 9.1 INTRODUCTION Namdeo Laxman Dhasal (15 February 1949 – 15 January 2014) was a Marathi poet, writer and Dalit activist from Maharashtra, India.Poetry was a natural form of expression for Namdeo Dhasal. In his words, “I did not have to consciously turn to poetry. Ever since I learnt to speak my mother tongue as a child, I started playing with words.” 185 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Born in a village near Pune, Namdeo Dhasal was raised in a rich heritage of community dancing and singing. The theatre and the community and folksinging that he was exposed to, nurtured his sensibility. As a young adult, Namdeo immensely wrote about nature and love, influenced by his favourite poets Bha Ra Tambe and Balakavi. In the 1950s, he moved to Mumbai to live in Dhor Chawl. It was only in the 1960s he started the of use of words to strip the mask that many ideological people wore. Hewas awarded the Padma Shri in 1999 and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Sahitya Akademi in 2004. In 2001, he made a presentation at the primary Berlin International Literature Festival. The Dalit literature tradition is an old one, though the term was introduced only in 1958. Dhasal was greatly inspired by the work of Baburao Bagul, who employed photographic realism to draw attention to the circumstances which those bereft of their rights from birth need to endure. Dhasal's poems broke faraway from stylistic conventions. He included in his poetry many words and expressions which only Dalits normally used. In Golpitha, as an example, he adapted his language thereto of the city district, which shocked bourgeoisie readers. The establishment assessments of Dhasal's political and artistic achievements may differ drastically, but, for Dhasal himself, politics and art were inextricably linked.During a 1982 interview, Dhasal said that if the aim of social struggles was the removal of unhappiness, then poetry was necessary because it expressed that happiness vividly and powerfully. Later he stated, \"Poetry is politics.\" He told the photographer Henning Stegmüller, \"I enjoy discovering myself and I am happy once I am writing a poem, and am happy once I am leading a protest of prostitutes fighting for his or her rights. Dhasal’s poetry is definitely a strong voice raised against the injustice suffered by the Dalits. This class has always been ostracized by the upper class which aroused consciousness among them and literature became the tool to assert their equal importance in the society. Dhasal said: “Both my individual and collective life have been through such tremendous upheavals that if my personal life did not have poetry to fall back on, I would not have reached thus far. I would have become a top gangster, the owner of a brothel, or a smuggler.” The world of Namdeo’s Dhasal’s poetry – the world known as ‘Golpitha’ in the city of Mumbai – begins where the frontier of Mumbai’s white-collar world ends and no-man’s land opens up. This is a world where the night is reversed into the day, where stomachs are empty or half empty, of depression, against death or the next days anxieties, of bodies left over after being consumed by shame and sensibility, of insufferably flowing sewerages, of diseased young bodies lying in the gutters braving the cold by holding their knees to their bellies, of the jobless, of beggars. of pickpockets, of holy mendicants, of neighbourhood tough guys and pimps. 186 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Most of the Poetry written by Dhasal are a critique of the social system of India and the established hierarchy of the powerful and the powerless. In his writings on Dalit consciousness, Dhasal always feared the pitfalls of identity politics and worked towards a synthesis between Ambedkarism and Marxism.His novel in Marathi, titled Ambedkari Chalval (1981), reflected upon Dr Ambedkar’s critical engagement with the socialist and communist movement of his times. Dhasal regarded Baburam Bagul because the foremost literary master whose Jevha Me Jaat Chorli Hoti (When I had concealed my Caste) and Maran Swasta Hot Ahe (Death is Becoming Cheaper) became master-pieces of recent Dalit literature. Bagul was the primary Marathi Dalit writer who introduced the note of class- consciousness in Dalit literature aside from highlighting the pain of the Dalit masses. Both modern Marathi poetry of the 19th century and modernist poetry initiated by Mardhekar belonged to core minority or what Dhasal wont to call the culture of ‘three and half percent of the population’. it's into this modernist avant-garde idiom that Dhasal introduced Bambaiya Hindi and Urdu and therefore the languages of the abject—in the sense employed by Kristeva (1981:11)—world of Kamathipura. He also subverted and parodied Sanskrit words to usher in indeterminacy and undermine not only the elitism of recent Marathi poetry but also the elitism of the modernist idiom. His influence on later generations of Dalit and non-Dalit Marathi poets is immense. Many stylistic aspects of Dhasal’s avant-garde, heterogeneous, playful, alliterative, explicit and opaque rhetoric find echoes within the linguistic flourishes of serious later poets like Bhujang Meshram (1958– 2007), Arun Kale (1954–2008), Mahendra Bhavre (b. 1961) and Santosh P. Pawar (b. 1972), among others of this generation.Arundhati Subrahmaniam describes his poetry thus: \"Dhasal may be a quintessentially Mumbai poet. Raw, raging, associative, almost carnal in its tactility, his poetry emerges from the underbelly of the town — its menacing, unplumbed netherworld. Noted Marathi playwright and critic Vijay Tendulkar compared him with Tukaram, the famous saint-poet of Maharashtra who lived in the 16th century. Dilip Chitre, himself a Marathi poet and translator, also a close friend of Dhasal, described him as arguably the foremost Marathi poet, as one of the foremost poets of India and as having world stature. 9.2 POEM: THE HUNGER Being a Dalit in our country is not a burden easy to carry; and to shed this burden and shine bright like a star, to have an established identity and to have a voice that could be heard requires a lot of strength and will power. This superhuman strength and power is exemplified in the life of Namdeo Laxman Dhasal. From suppression to assertion of the poets like Dhasal resulted in such poetry where the atrocities suffered by the Dalit community in general can be reflected in order to bring about the change in the society. Poems such as “Hunger” and are the reflection of the depressed classes whose permanent 187 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
companions are hunger and poverty. In the poem “Hunger”, Dhasal has personified hunger which is a constant feature in the lives of the people of the depressed classes regardless of their immense hard work. The poet asks hunger to forgive him and his people as they are weak and cannot dare to suffer the tricks played by it as he puts: “To what market can we take a voiceless heart? / Where can we put it on auction? / Where every day sweeps life away, / Who’ll buy a crushed heart? ” Poet feels defeated by hunger and asks it to leave his people, as if they accept and preserve it , everything will turn dark in their lives 1 Hunger Unable to do this I one thing and able To solve or not solve theorems Will hunger –fires forge a poem? Will music die in the fire of hunger? How difficult music is To him who cannot count the best of his own pulse. Who hadn’t thought that fees couldn’t be claimed? For singing songs of hunger. 2 Hunger A fruitless thing However hard you work The reward is still stones If stones cannot build a house We’ll not manage to live in it. Hunger you are mouse, cat, lion in turn How long can mere mortals like us stand I this game that you’ve set up? 3 Hunger a shrewd peace is growing everywhere this is the beginning of our new life sentence hunger forgive us that we cannot cut the tree of time but even cut, the sky will still be blue. To which market can we carry dumb hearts? Where auction them Where day sweeps life Who will buy crushed hearts? Who will profit by the deal? Hunger, tell us your game, your strategy If we can muster guts enough 188 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
We’ll fight you to the finish 189 Can’t crawl and grovel on our stomachs Too long with you How much can we wash the grime off hunger? How much wash the dust off years? How much scorn to the very ends of scorn? Hunger, if a bridge of iron will not join you to us Then let us fly free like unfettered birds Hunger, your land, the thorns upon your land, Fester in the brain all night Till the brain itself freezes. Hunger, when a thing is taken from the fridge Is it still fresh? Hunger your every blood drop is cold Your every blood drop is mute Order, let lightening course through the guts Order, let life get charged Wounded seas and the long moans of our demands Hunger, say yes to our dreams Don’t snuff out the orphan huts upon the shore We’ll see later The gold-threaded struggle Between the snail of pain and the sea. 4 Hunger we have made our demand let you need us will we never grow? Let us grow The sun may blithely have forgotten dawn The river may blithely have forgotten time We wanted more from light Than mere life But light turned false. 5 Hunger, We will not allow a column of cloud to stand, Indifferent, to our door How much more can we thank Pain the music in pain CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
If we have not made ourselves a tidy life 190 What right do we have to quarrel with the flowers? How much can we excite pain? How much can we burn? How much can we catch the fire that burns forever? If our words find no expression In this stream of sun We’ll salute you like defeated soldiers Whoever said that every soldier in the army Fights like a man? 6 Hunger, There’s not a single grain in our house today not a single clever brain in our house today hunger if one sings till the last light of the innermost being will it turn off hunger-light? Hunger if one takes care of you now Will it darken? Hunger, your style is your own No other calamity comes our way But you. Hunger, if we cannot mate you Cannot impregnate you Our tribe will have to kill itself Hunger we have all the aces Why talk of the songs of the half-sexed jacks? Here’s our manhood before you now, Let’s see who wins this round You or we. 7 Hunger which came first, seed or tree? Hunger you make things too difficult Hunger just tell us what breed this monkey is And if you can’t Then we will screw Seventeen generations of you Hunger, you and your mother. CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
9.3 I SLEW THE SEVEN HORSES OF THE CHARIOT OF THE SUN Namdev Dhasal's poem Mee Marale Sooryachya Rathache Ghode, which means I Slew the Seven Horses of the Chariot of the Sun is a collection of his philosophical and emotional poems. Dilip Chitre translated a selection of Dhasal's poems into English under the title Namdeo Dhasal: Poet of the Underworld, Poems 1972–2006. “I Slew the Horses of the Chariot of the Sun”, personifies the Sun who is the witness to all the ruthlessness suffered by Dalits, but allows it. The poet addresses the Sun who permitted the tyrannical powers to hold their power over the depressed, who allowed the upper class to molest them, who made the depressed class victims of injustice and no liberty by not burning the powerful class with its fire. In the literal sense, Dhasal spells out his anguish against all the odds his community encountered and curses the powerful class, landlords and the feudal lords who deprived them of everything from social status to economic stability. Dhasal refers to the Sun using various metaphors such as ‘the beguiling spy’, heartless rock in heaven’, ‘illustrator of the peopled world’, ‘distortion of fire’, ‘devil’, ‘wretched one’ etc. Addressing the Sun, Dhasal writes: Nullify the fraudulent change of hands That robbed us of our hands Punish the landowners and the feudal lords; Whom caste and money have made powerful and arrogant Return to us the rain that belongs to us And irrigates our crops. Heartless rock in heaven! Lover of dawn! Illustrator of the peopled world! Distortion of fire! Vast body continuously smouldering round the hours! Owner of the finest glowing silk! Eternally potent virile seed, do I know you? I slew the seven horses of the chariot of the sun’; These collections of Poems also portray the anger which the Dalits in India faces although slavery was officially abolished in 1844, however Indian Dalits did not have any pleasure when it came to leading a life which was free of caste politics. They were always oppressed in the name of their caste and Dasal in this poem is asking the Sun as to what else do the Dalits forgo in the Name of oppression and how dare does the Sun just sit there and look upon the atrocities faced by the Dalits! 191 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
We have been allowed a glimpse of what more there is in this world of the Dalit underworld where most will never even venture to understand the human condition with Namdeo Dhasal’s works. What we get is the Raw truth .One cannot help but be moved with compassion upon reading. We will completely forget difficulties in our life if we see how Dalits in this country lead a life. 9.4 SUMMARY ● Dalit literature originally emerged in the Marathi language as a literary response to the everyday oppressions of caste in mid-twentieth-century independent India, critiquing caste practices by experimenting with various literary forms. ● This poetry has become the source and a medium for Dhasal to say the facts which were then unknown to the bulk of individuals, regarding the lifetime of the depressed classes. Dhasal’s earlier poems like this seem more violent, bold and harsh critique of the social hierarchy prevalent in Indian society and of the dominating assertion of the powerful over the powerless groups. On the opposite hand, his later poems seem to show from bold to a kind of lamentation, i.e., lamenting the injustice bared by his caste, all kinds of odds through which his community went through and of the position to which the poet himself fell thanks to various circumstances in his life which are wholly connected to his birth in such a community. ● Dhasal has inspired many poets not only in the State of Maharashtra but in the entire country. His vision about life, his struggle, and his poetry were also the factors which added to the Dalit movement which still is existing in certain states of the country. ● Through Dasal the Dalits got a voice to their struggles which gave them a confidence like never before. 9.5KEYWORDS ● Slew- To Turn or Kill ● Dalit– is a name for people belonging to the lowest caste in India, characterised as \"untouchable\". 9.6 LEARNING ACTIVITY 1. Dhasal wrote nine anthologies of poems and several prose writings, including one novel. All his poetry collections are significant contributions to the history of literature in India. But the most celebrated among his works was Golpitha — his first poetry collection, which needs to be read by every literature student. 192 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
__________________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ 9.7UNIT END QUESTIONS A. Descriptive Questions Short Questions 1. When was Namdeo Dhasal born? 2. Which community in India did Dhasal belong to? 3. What is the name of the first poem collection of Dhasal? 4. Who has translated the work of Namdeo Dhasal into English? 5. How many anthologies of Poem did Dhasal write? Long Questions 1. What are the main aspects in the poem “hunger” by Namdeo Dhasal? 2. What are the main aspects of the poem “I slew the seven horses of the chariot of the SUN”? 3. What role did Namdeo Dhasal play in Dalit Experience of Maharashtra. 4. How did the Dalits get confidence with the writings of Dasal? 5. Write in brief about the writings of Namdeo Dhasal? B. Multiple Choice Questions 1. Which language did Namdeo Dhasal write in? a. English b. Marathi c. Gujrathi d. Hindi 2. Where was Namdeo Dhasal born? a. Pune 193 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
b. Delhi 194 c. Ahmedabad d. Nagpur 3.When was he awarded Padamashree? a. 1999 b. 1990 c. 1998 d. 1996 4.What feeling has Dhasal portrayed in most of his work? a. Love b. Lust c. Anger d. Sadness 5. What does Mee Marale Sooryachya Rathache Ghode mean? a. I Slew the Seven Horses of the Chariot of the Sun b. Critic c. Language d. Misreading Answers 1-b; 2-a; 3-a; 4-c; 5-a 9.8 REFERENCES Reference’s book Primary Sources Chitre, Dilip, translator. A Current of Blood. By Namdeo Dhasal, navayana CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Publishers, New Delhi, 2010. Ramasamy, Anushiya, translator. Give Us This Day a Feast of Flesh. By N.D. Rajkumar, Navayana Publishers, New Delhi, 2010. Electronic Source Maitreya, Yogesh. “Namdeo Dhasal’s Poetry”. 28 Oct. 2017, 11:53:08 IST Citre, Dilip (2007), Namdeo Dhasal: Poet of the Underworld (New Delhi: Navayana). Dalit Panther Manifesto, 1973 (Bombay: Dalit Panthers). Dangle, Arjun (1994), Poisoned Bread: Translations from Modern Marathi Dalit Literature (New Delhi: Orient Longman). Dhasal, Namdeo (2007), Golpitha (Pune: Lokwangmay Griha). Kumar, Arvind (2009), Discrimination and Resistance: A Comparative Study of Black Movements in the US and Dalit Movements in India. (PhD Thesis, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi). 195 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
UNIT – 10: TO INTRODUCE STUDENT TO THE POETRY OF “NIRALA” Structure 10.0 Learning Objectives 10.1 Introduction of the Author 10.2 To introduce the student to the poetry of Suryakant Tripathi “Remembering Saroj” 10.3 Summary 10.4 Keywords 10.5 Learning Activity 10.6 Unit End Questions 10.7 References 10.0 LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this unit, you should be able to: ● A brief study of Suryakanth Triphatis life as a poet ● Introduce the poetry of Suryakant Triphathi ‘NIRALA’ ● Introduction to ‘REMEMBERING SAROJ’ 10.1 INTRODUCTION Suryakant Tripathi (1869–1961), wrote under the pen name “Nirala” (Unique), and is considered among the greatest modern Hindi writers. He is known as one of the founders of the chhayavad school of poetry, and was one of the greatest novelists and essayist that India has produced. Early Life Born in an orthodox Brahmin family settled within the Midnapore district of Bengal. Suryakant Tripathi's parents were originally from the Unnao region of Uttar Pradesh but were settled in Bengal for a reasonably while. Niralas father Pandit Ramasahaya Tripathi was a government employee and was known to be extremely strict and overbearing with his 196 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
family. It was on his insistence that Tripathi got enrolled to a Bengali medium school. But it had been the Sanskrit language which interested him the foremost and he would often read books in Sanskrit, Hindi and English. Suryakant Tripathi's mother died when he was still very young, leaving him to tackle his tyrannical father alone. He passed his matriculation examinations after the death of his mother, after which he had to continue further studies by himself as his father wouldn't allow further education. Since he had already mastered the Bengali language he started targeting Hindi, Sanskrit and English literature after his matriculation. After a couple of years Suryakant Tripathi shifted from Bengal to his forefathers' native Uttar Pradesh to continue studies and work.Nirala first settled in Lucknow then within the Gadhakola village of the Unnao district in UP.Reports claim that Suryakanth Tripathi 'Nirala' was rebellious in nature. He didn't accept the set pattern of society and always ventured into new spheres of learning and practice. It has been for this reason that Suryakant Tripathi bore the brunt of criticism from the society that he lived in.Nirala tied the knot with Anohar Devi during his stay in Gadhakola village and spent some good and peaceful years of his life together with her. Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala' was a mere kid at the time of his marriage and he found the much-needed solace within the company of his wife Anohar Devi. He also had a daughter together with her.Nirala had already started writing in Bengali at the time of his marriage, but noticing his love for the Hindi language, his wife insisted him into writing in Hindi and this is when Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala' started penning essays, stories and poems in Hindi. However, like most of his life, tragedy struck, and his wife Anohar Devi expired due to illness. Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala' was only 20 years aged at the time of her death. Later his daughter who had also got married and later widowed died an unfortunate death, leaving him on their lonesome.Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala' went through am emotional and loss after the death of two of the closest people to his heart. so as to earn money, Nirala found employment with Samanvaya, while also working as an editor and proof-reader for several publishers in and around Uttar Pradesh. The contents of Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala's writings weren't mere figments of imagination, but true incidents from the society he lived in. He used his writings to talk out against the injustice that was prevalent within the early twentieth society. However, he was ready to bring little change within the society through his penned down thoughts because nobody was prepared to lend support to his rebellious ways in an orthodox society He also went through financial troubles during this point. During that phase, he worked for several publishers, worked as a proof-reader and also edited publications including Matvala and Samanvaya. Most of his life was somewhat within the Bohemian tradition. He wrote strongly against social injustice and exploitation in society. Since he was more or less a rebel, both in form and content, acceptance didn't come easily. What he came plenty was ridicule and derision. All this might have played a task in making him a victim of schizophrenia in his later life and he was admitted to Central Institute of Psychiatry, Ranchi. 197 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Nirala died in Allahabad on 15 October 1961. Although not appreciated then today, Nirala is one among the only a few people in Hindi literature who are admired and revered by most, across all divisions. Today, a park, Nirmala Uddyan, an auditorium, Nirala Prekshagrah, and a degree college, Mahapran Nirala Degree College, within the Unnao District are named after him. His life-size bust has been installed at the most open-air market of Daraganj, Allahabad, an area where he lived for many of his life. His family still lives in Daraganj, Allahabad. The road on which his modest house was situated is now named \"Nirala Marg\". Work Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala' was a crucial member of the Chhayavaad era of Hindi literature or the Neo-Romantic period of Hindi literature. Most of his writings were unconventional and differed from the sorts of his contemporaries. As stated earlier, he liked to voice his ill feelings about the society through his writings and this led to varied publishers dismissing his work and not publishing them. Therefore, albeit he was a writer of high standards, his talent and depth of data of the Hindi language were recognized only after his death. Though nationalism and revolution were the chief contents of his writing, he also liked to affect the history of languages, mythology and religion and nature. His writings often reflected his thorough study of the Puranas. In fact, it had been due to the very fact that his sort of writing was totally different from his contemporaries that Suryakant Tripathi received the title of 'Nirala' which suggests 'unique' within the Hindi tongue. Apart from writing and contributing to Hindi literature, Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala' was also an occasional painter. He was liable for introducing the concept of vers libre within the world of Hindi poems and prose. He's best remembered for his poem 'Saroj Smriti', which was dedicated to his deceased daughter. Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala' was a firm believer within the life and ideologies of stalwarts like Swami Vivekananda, Sri Ramkrishna Paramahansa and Rabindranath Tagore. It had been their writings which helped him to enhance his own style and content over the years. Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala' was one among the approaching members of the Hindi Kavi Sammelan, a gathering which encompassed a number of the good poets of Hindi literature. Nirala’s treatment of the topic of the class structure, inter-religious marriage and homosexuality is remarkably sensitive, non-judgmental and progressive. The open mindedness exhibited during this book published in 1939 is way greater than found in most literature on similar subjects today. The actual fact that his own memoir is titled after a Dalit whom he respected tells us that Nirala chose to guage a private supported his capability than the nominal place determined for him by society. Nirala’s audience would have expected nothing less from him. it had been a time of great writers questioning the established order. The openly homosexual Raghunath Sahay, better known by his takhallus Firaq Gorakhpuri, was one such. Shabbir Hasan Khan, known better as Josh Mallihabadi, was another – Khan managed to possess himself exiled from the state of Hyderabad in 1925 for writing a poem criticising the Nizam. 198 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
Death Like his great contemporaries, Nirala was a proud man. He earned small sums from his stints as an editor at noted journals and magazines just like the Ramakrishna Mission publication Samanvaya, and later at the 1920s-launched Matvala.The cash he earned from copy-editing, proofreading, and submitting his own poems and essays for publication wasn't enough to form a living. Recognition came to him only later, and when it did, the government was willing to supply him money to sustain himself – but he refused it due to his ego. His friend and renowned poet Mahadevi Verma was then granted a particular amount monthly so as to require care of him. His circumstances and therefore the early tragic losses of his mother, wife and daughter led to a mental breakdown – it's believed that he turned schizophrenic. 10.2POEM: REMBERING SAROJ Saroj the beloved daughter of Nirala who was married young but became a widow soon after returned back to him as his caretaker, his sole family . She was the only reason for him to stay him connected to the planet .Unfortunately she too passed away at the young age of eighteen. Her untimely death, made him give up all the materialistic things in life. He shunned all worldly possessions thereafter and survived on bare minimum. Whatever he had in form of awards or patronage, he distributed amongst the needy. Nirala worked tirelessly as a distinguished editor on the board of several literary journals and wrote prolifically until his death on the beauties and injustices of this world with startling passion, insight and creativity. Nirala's most emotive and masterful poems, “Remembering Saroj,” (सरोजस्मृति) is a tribute to her life, his love for her and his perceived failure as a father to offer her everything in life. In the words of David Rubin, a scholar of Nirala and a skillful translator of his poetry (published during a volume called A Season on the Earth):Nirala’s “work was too startling in its originality, his language too difficult, his satire too bitter, his separate the past too offensive to the orthodox, and therefore the depth of his feeling either too troubling or too far beyond the common ken to assure wide popularity.” Nirala’s greatest elegy Saroj Smriti to his 18-year-old daughter Saroj is heart-wrenching: Dukh hi jivan ki katha rahi Kya kahun aaj, jo nahi kahi! The story of my life has been full of woe What can I say now, that I haven’t said before! These lines of Nirala signify that he is poet ofrealism, shadoism, spiritualism, and experimentalism. With his verses, he also raised his voice against social exploitation. In his 199 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
works, he has blended Vedanta, nationalism, mysticism and love of nature. The subject of his creations has always been historical, religious, natural, social and political. He has included things like beauty, natural love and freedom in his poems. Saroj Smriti is gave way to the new form of poetry in Indian Era “The Shadow era”. caring heart of a poet is always associated with the sufferers and their suffering. His major aim is to exposing their issues in his literature. A man of letters always feels his duty towards the society to exploit the absorption within the society. It’s a very common matter for a poet to outrage the society absorptions in his poems. This feeling of outrage has been given the status of populistism. Due to Suryakant Tripathi 'Nirala’s' individuality, he was able to present the state of populistism arising in his poetry. Suryakant Tripathi ’Nirala’ is the poet of Shadowism but his all creations are surrounded to the populistism. He wanted to create society free from exploitation, were there shouldnoplace for injusticeand tyranny. He was a great supporter of equality, freedom and justice, and wanted to end the socialunequal’s all the levels in the society. Scarcely nineteen you took one step and crossed the whole of life, my daughter. closed your young eyes to your father, and said farewell to living_ My song, you shed this individual self and entered forever freedom beyond the changing. You had lived out your eighteen years fulfilled and pure when your swift feet mounted the ship of death, as though to say, \"Father. I choose the full light. This isn't dying but only the lotus brightening, a crossing over. \" Being a poet, I had some understanding so I might catch the speech of silent lips. I'd made my offerings day and night to luminous Sarasvati. Living poem of mine. when you abandoned me on earth, pierced by every arrow, did you go to heaven thinking. When my father makes the journey, he'll find the going hard, and then I'll help him through the darkness? So spoke your easy going, it had no other meaning when you left us under the bleak sky of the first day of the bright half of the rainy month. Daughter, I was a worthless father, did nothing for you Although I knew some ways of earning, I would always let them slip away, knowing as I well knew the wrongs attending the path to wealth. I always lost the struggle for success. And so. my dear. I couldn't dress you in silk or even give you enough to eat. But I could never snatch the poor man's bread or bear to see him weep. I always saw reflected in my tears only my own face and my own heart. Written after the death of the poet's daughter. Saroj. The name means lotus; throughout the poem the many synonyms for locus and the flower’s a many conventional epithets in Sanskrit and Hindi are nailed open to reinforce and lend ■ poignant resonance to.ht. evocation of Savours life and her significance for Nirala, 200 CU IDOL SELF LEARNING MATERIAL (SLM)
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