Introduction—the Early Years
This day my vital is astir,
My voice yearns to
hum,
My heart is under a felicity’s
charm,
Swings fondly my
teenaged bower!
Which flower should I offer,
Which path to follow in today’s adventure,
How to tune my veena to produce a
musical charm?…
This day will sing my prayer
With songs deeper and
more sublime,
This day my ardent desire
Dives into
fathomlessness of life.
Wind from the secret grove
Will come to play my flute,
The heavens fill with silence’
prime. [1]
On 24 March 1909 a son was born to
Bijoyshankar Raichowdhury and Soudamini Devi. Bijoyshankar, who was then
sixty-five years of age, resided in the city of
Bijoyshankar had nearly lost his
eyesight due to diabetes but his profession as a lawyer didn’t receive any
setback because he possessed an impeccable memory. One of his juniors, named
Ramgopal Trivedi, used to read out the books of law to him and that served the
purpose.
When Nishikanto was four years of
age he lost his mother Soudamini Devi who was suffering from tuberculosis, a
dreaded and incurable disease in those days. Soudamini was the second wife of
Bijoyshankar whose first wife had died leaving behind three sons (Sachikanto,
Sitakanto and Surajkanto) and a daughter (Suhasini). Sachikanto died soon after
his marriage, Surajkanto died of tuberculosis while studying medicines and
Suhasini too died early leaving behind three daughters Saroj, Nalini and Parul.
Bijoyshankar and Soudamini had two sons (Sudhakanto, who would later become
secretary to Rabindranath Tagore and Nishikanto) and a daughter named
Ushamoyee. It is said that Soudamini had contacted tuberculosis while nursing
Surajkanto, as a result of which, Nishikanto and Ushamoyee were not allowed to
go near their mother. Soon after the demise of Soudamini, Bijoyshankar gave up
his residence at Unao and came to
Nishikanto was never bestowed with
a robust health. Despite the love and affection he received from the elders of
the family, he began to suffer from a number of diseases which included
malaria, typhoid, pneumonia, black-fever to name a few. To recover from the
weakness that resulted due to the diseases, he was served goat-milk instead of
cow-milk (as it is easy to digest). Later, when he grew up, whenever he was
scolded for his mischief by Bijoyshankar or Sudhakanto (who would say, “You
think like a goat.”), Nishikanto would reply: “Well, this is the effect of
goat-milk.”
When Nishikanto was five years of
age, Bijoyshankar, Sudhakanto and his wife Nibha left for Santiniketan—the
‘abode of peace’—with Nishikanto and Ushamoyee. On their way they halted at
Though the scenic beauty of
Santiniketan developed the poetic mind of Nishikanto, it did little to improve
his health. Compared to the other students of Santiniketan he was weak and
could never join them in games and sports as much as he wanted because of his
physical weakness. But despite his weakness he had a ‘demonic appetite’; since
he was given only light food for easy digestion, he would sometimes steal food
from the kitchen and whenever he was caught he would hide either under a cot
(during the darkness of the night) or under a banyan tree during the day.
With his age grew his never-ending
mischief. Once Bijoyshankar narrated the story of Aladin to the children of the
family; his brother’s daughter Aparna (who would join the Sri Aurobindo Ashram
in 1955 to look after the ailing Nishikanto) asked Nishikanto: “Brother, if we
rub the lamp in the prayer-room would a genie come out of it?” Nishikanto
replied: “Certainly, you bring that lamp quietly and start rubbing it.” Aparna
brought the lamp and began to rub it but when no genie came out she told
Nishikanto: “The genie is not coming.” Nishikanto assured her: “How do you
expect the genie to come in broad daylight amid so many people? He will
certainly come by the evening. Don’t stop rubbing.” Aparna went on rubbing the
lamp till sunset; the more she wept because of the pain in her hands the more
Nishikanto laughed. It was only when the members of the family heard her cry
and came to her rescue did she stop. However, Nishikanto wasn’t scolded; on the
contrary it was Aparna who was scolded because of her stupidity.
There are innumerable stories of
how Nishikanto would steal food. However it is essential to note that
‘stealing’ shouldn’t be meant in the general sense—he did it just for the sake
of fun. Once he drank milk from a tumbler kept in the kitchen at Santiniketan;
since the door was locked from outside he put a branch of a papaya tree in the
tumbler and sucked a great quantity of the milk through the window! And on
another occasion, he along with Sagarmoy Ghosh [2] had climbed up a coconut
tree and pierced several coconuts with the help of a drilling machine and drank
its water. When the matter was reported to Tagore he sent the dry coconuts to
Jagadish Chandra Bose who, after inspecting them, concluded: “It has been done
by some insects with long sting.” And once Nishikanto had snapped the shikha
[tuft of hair on the crown of the head] of Sanat Thakur, the Head Master of the
Primary School as well as its Sanskrit teacher (not of Santiniketan) with a
pair of scissors while he was taking his afternoon nap since he had scolded
Nishikanto.
If Nishikanto was mischievous then
it won’t be an exaggeration to claim that he had an “able companion and
conspirer” in his brother Sudhakanto. There goes a story that once the two
brothers heard that the Santals [tribal men] of Santiniketan had killed a
tiger; they hurriedly went to the village of the Santals and after bargaining
with them got one of the hind-quarters of the tiger which they brought home and
cooked. When this news went around, there was uproar among those who knew them
and they tried to dissuade them but in vain. At last Tagore himself had to
intervene.
Tagore was often informed about
Nishikanto’s mischievous antics but he hardly admonished the young boy. The
poet had noticed the spark of a genius in his eyes and his poems reflected the
prospective traits of a great poet. Nishikanto’s early poems (most of which are
lost to us) were read and commented by Tagore who also invited him to his
mansion Uttarayan whenever a good dish was prepared. He also called Nishikanto
lovingly: “The Moon-Poet.”
The scenic beauty of Shivhati laid
the foundation of Nishikanto’s poetic genius. The flowing river Icchamati,
green pastures and farmlands, the profound silence of Nature, the chirping of
birds—it was as if Nature had built a dreamland on earth. Nishikanto chose a
special place for his creative pursuits—it was a piece of land near a huge
Banyan tree around which dead children were buried; the place was hardly
visited by anyone and Nishikanto found it to be the ideal place for his
verse-composition. He would keep the notebooks in which he wrote his poems
under a stone and sometimes he just wandered among Nature to embrace the
infinite Beauty and Beatitude. During one such occasion, he had lost the sense
of time and it was not until 10 o’clock in the night when his uncle found and
brought him back to the house. Bijoyshankar was quite perturbed by his son’s
activities and one day he asked Nishikanto: “Why do you do such things? What do
you want?” The young boy declared: “I want to be an ascetic.” The old father
replied: “So be it, but not until I’m alive.”
Nishikanto was hardly in his teens
when his father passed away. With the demise of Bijoyshankar Nishikanto’s
latent desire to become an ascetic rose in his heart. At that time Sudhakanto
had left Santiniketan and migrated to Shiuri to work in an American firm.
Nishikanto too had to accompany his brother and was enrolled in Benimadhav
Institution. Sudhakanto told his younger brother very clearly that since
Bijoyshankar was no longer alive therefore Nishikanto would have to abide by
all the instructions of Sudhakanto and be serious towards his studies. As an
obedient boy Nishikanto began to go to school where he studied well and made
new friends. The Head Master of the school (who was Sudhakanto’s friend) and
Sudhakanto himself were pleased to see Nishikanto concentrating in his studies
but the disciplined life of the school soon turned out to be a bed of thorns
for Nishikanto and he began to feel suffocated within the four walls of the
classroom. His heart longed to go out and sit amid Nature and compose poetry.
One day he bunked school and began to wander aimlessly till he came to a
graveyard where he discovered a broken chamber. The chamber was the heaven he
was aspiring for; he stopped going to school and spent his time in the chamber
writing verses or roaming around. His wandering habits ignored the changing
weather and very soon he was down with black-fever once again. When Sudhakanto
was informed about his brother’s absence from school, he confronted Nishikanto
and demanded an explanation for his not going to school. Nishikanto replied
calmly: “Due to daily attacks of fever.” Sudhakanto refused to believe him and
thought it was just another excuse to evade school. But one day Nishikanto’s
temperature shot up so much that despite covering his body with a blanket he
continued to shiver. No medicine could cure him. Then one day Nishikanto told
his elder brother that Bijoyshankar had come to him in a dream and told him to
use homeopathy and the name of the medicine he gave was ‘arsenic’. At first
Sudhakanto dismissed it as a mere dream but when one of his friends had the
same dream he couldn’t remain unconvinced. ‘Arsenic’ proved to be a good
medicine for black-fever and Nishikanto began to recover.
As soon as Nishikanto recovered, he
re-commenced his wandering habits and also began to read biographies of saints
and holy men. His vairagya was
noticeable to all. When his maternal grandmother came to visit him, she thought
of a brainwave that would cool down the wandering temperament of her grandson.
She decided to get Nishikanto, who was then fifteen years of age, married to a
village girl whom she had selected. But Nishikanto refused to marry the girl as
he had once seen her sucking a mango sitting on a tree, with the juice rolling
down her arm. He had developed an instant disliking for her and he decided to
renounce the world and become an ascetic without any further delay. On that
very night when everyone was fast asleep, he gathered a warm blanket, some
clothes and his notebooks where he had penned his poems and left the house.
While on his way he suddenly realized that an ascetic mustn’t have any worldly
attachments. He returned to his house, took an ordinary blanket instead of the
warm one, discarded his clothes, threw his precious notebooks into a well and
left for his unknown destination.
Nishikanto walked for several hours
at a stretch until hunger and tiredness disallowed him to move a step ahead.
Then he noticed a mango tree a branch of which had bent downwards and a goat
was trying to have the leaves. He went ahead, tore the leaves that he ate and
shared with the goat. He resumed his journey till he came to a village where an
old lady fed him with whatever she could, i.e. plain rice and pulses. His
hunger-stricken body was satisfied and he was convinced that the Divine
provided food to those who sought Him. One day he arrived at the banks of a river
where a few shops were located. One of the shopkeepers was delighted to see an
ascetic at day-break (it is considered to be extremely auspicious) and fed him
to his heart’s content.
[1] Nishikanto, Bonne Fête (Janmadin
translated by Satadal), pp. 1-2
[2] Sagarmoy Ghosh was the younger
brother of Santidev Ghosh, the renowned exponent of Rabindrasangeet (the songs
of Tagore) and he was the editor of Desh,
the oldest literary magazine of