Sri Aurobindo on Nishikanto’s Poetry
Sri Aurobindo was quite
appreciative of Nishikanto’s poems; what follows are some of his comments on
Nishikanto’s poetry. Note that at some places Nishikanto has been spelt as
Nishikanta; the author has only quoted what is printed in the text:
# [Nishikanto] got a touch here
which brought out in him some powerful force of vital vision and word that
certainly had not shown any signs of existing before…
# Nishikanta came out in much the same
way, a sudden
# Nishikanta’s [poetry] comes
straight from the vital vision and knocks you in the pit of your stomach. He
does not repeat his images…and they are exceedingly striking and forceful. They
are of one type…
Regarding a comparison between the
poetry of Nirodbaran and Nishikanto:
#It is certainly a difficult to
keep them together, especially as Nishikanta’s
stanzas are strong and fiery and
yours are delicate and plaintive. It is like a strong robustuous fellow and a
delicate slender one walking in a leash—they don’t quite coalesce.
# Power is [Nishikanto’s] main
element.
# [Nishikanto] has poetical ideas and he
develops them in his poems. A poet need not have intellectual ideas to be
great…When Nishikanta started writing, I said his poems were “vital”, but he
made great progress afterwards.
# [Nishikanto] is trying to put
force and strength into his poetry. One has to be very careful when trying new
things that they don’t become heavy. He has a remarkable gift of rhythm…
# [Regarding Nishikanto’s poetry]
…it was a stroke of genius…It is indeed a remarkable effort, full of beauty and
power…
# Nishikanta has imagination and
the ideas carry beauty in [his poetry]…
# Nishikanta’s poem on the Bazaar
is very good work admirably done—he is evidently a craftsman in language and
rhythm… There is however some power of developing a poetic subject which is
full of promise.
# Nishikanta’s poetry has undergone
a great change. I did not appreciate it very highly because it was too vital
and turbid, but on his sonnets he has acquired a power of substance, clarity
and order which raises his work to a much higher level. He has certainly
justified himself as a poet.
# [Nishikanto] has a remarkable
gift of music and language and of skilful weaving of sound and work…In order to
equal or surpass Tagore he has to develop a power of deep feeling and deep
significance equal to his other powers and arrive at a perfect equation or
balance between sound + language and sense…Nishikanta of course often does that
and his work is then truly remarkable.
# Nishikanta has indeed bloomed
out, but with his great facility of diction and rhythm he must be careful to
keep his substance up to the mark as he did in the sonnets.
# [Nishikanto’s] rhythms are indeed
wonderful. What a gift.
# Nishikanta’s poem is as usual
full of poetic energy and admirable rhythm.
# Nishikanta’s [poem] as always, is
rich and beautiful, but of another manner.
# Nishikanta seems to want a
movement which will give more volume, strength and sonority that Bengali verse
can succeed in creating but is yet poetry, not prose arranged in lines such as
most free verse seems to me to be or at the best poetic prose cut into lines of
different lengths. All things can be tried—the test is success—true poetic
excellence. Nishikanta has sent me some of his gadya chhanda [free verse]
before which seemed to me to have much flow and energy…
# Nishikanta seems to have put
himself into contact with an inexhaustible source of flowing word and
rhythm—with the world of sound-music, which is one province of the World of
Beauty. It is part of the vital World no doubt and the joy that comes of
contact with that beauty is vital—but it is a subtle vital which is not merely
sensuous. It is one of the powers by which the substance of the consciousness
can be refined and prepared for sensibility to a still higher beauty and
Ananda. Also it can be made a vehicle
for the expression of the highest things. The Veda, the Upanishads, the Mantra
everywhere owe half its power to the rhythmic sound that embodies it.
Defining the poetic characteristics
of Nirobaran and Nishikanto:
# Yours [Nirodbaran’s] is a flute,
Nishikanta’s is a drum.
Regarding Nishikanto’s correction
of a poem composed by Nirodbaran, Sri Aurobindo informed the latter: “My God,
he has pummeled you into pieces and thrown away all but a few shreds. No, you
can’t call it yours. Perhaps you can label it, ‘Nirod after being devoured,
assimilated and eliminated by Nishikanta.’ ”
# [Nishikanto] is writing of
experiences that are foreign to the ordinary mentality.
# Nishikanta has a fine channel and
with a very poetic turn in it—he offers no resistance to the flow of the force,
no interference of his mental ego, only the convenience of his mental
individuality.
# [Nishikanta] has a strong
individuality of his own as a poet and at the same time a great assimilative
power.
Nishikanto in the talks with Sri Aurobindo
Apropos of Nishikanto let’s quote
some passages from the talks Sri Aurobindo had with his disciples:
7 January 1940
[Sri Aurobindo was shown by
Nirodbaran Nishikanto’s new poem in matra-vritta
blank verse]
Sri Aurobindo: How do you find the
rhythm?
Nirodbaran: It seems all right. How
do you find it?
Sri Aurobindo: I can’t say as I am
not familiar with this chhanda
(rhythm and metre).
Nirodbaran: I asked Dilip today
what he thought about Nishikanto’s new chhanda.
Nishikanto had told me Dilip had found it very successful. Dilip said, “It is a
misrepresentation. Please tell Guru about it.” …I told him that his overflows
were very good but here and there there was roughness. I gave him a hint but he
didn’t take it.”
Sri Aurobindo: I also had the
impression that there was much weightage and crowding of things.
Nirodbaran: I also thought there
must be something wrong. Otherwise you wouldn’t have asked me…Dilip says that
when Nishikanto tries to do something consciously he makes mistakes. He is
trying many new things.
Sri Aurobindo: He is trying to put
force and strength into his poetry. One has to be very careful when trying new
things that they don’t become heavy. He has a remarkable gift of rhythm… [31]
17 January 1940
[Tagore’s letter to Nishikanto was read out to
Sri Aurobindo by Nirodbaran; in the letter Tagore says that though Nishikanto
is a real artist and his expressions and rhythm are of a very high order but
there is a lack of variety in his poems and adds that he was like a
“one-stringed lyre” while the “poetic mind demands a variety of tunes.”]
Sri Aurobindo: It really comes to
this: “You can’t be a great poet unless you write like me!”…Take, for instance,
Francis Thompson’s Hound of Heaven.
How many people understand and appreciate it? Does it follow that Thompson is
not a great poet?
Nirodbaran: Tagore means to say
that everybody must have variety like himself. Nishikanto saw in a vision that
Tagore was satirising Nishikanto’s expressions like “light-fountain” before
people and saying, “What is this light-fountain?” [32]
19 January 1940
Nirodbaran: Talking of J and
Nishikanto, I find that the latter hasn’t the former’s subtlety and delicacy of
expression.
Sri Aurobindo: A poet need not have
these things in order to be great.
Nirodbaran: No. Nishikanto always
gives the impression of power.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, power is his
main element…
Nirodbaran: You think that
Nishikanto has intellectual substance?
Sri Aurobindo: I believe he has… By
the way, I don’t understand why X says that Nishikanto has no ideas.
Nirodbaran: What he says is that
Nishikanto lacks intellectual substance.
Sri Aurobindo: What do you mean by
that? You mean philosophical thought?
Nirodbaran: I think he means ideas
such as A.E. has, for instance.
Sri Aurobindo: But he has poetical
ideas and he develops them in his poems. A poet need not have intellectual
ideas to be great… When Nishikanto started writing, I said his poems were
“vital”, but he made great progress afterwards.
Nirodbaran: Some of his poems are
even psychic.
Sri Aurobindo: His Bullock Cart is certainly psychic.
20 January 1940
[Nirodbaran read out to Sri
Aurobindo Tagore’s letter to Nishikanto praising his book Alakananda. Sri Aurobindo was very glad and exclaimed, “Oh”, and at
the end said, “That’s wonderful.”]
Purani: … [Tagore] has been forced
to admit Nishikanto’s quality…
Nirodbaran: Now he finds that his
two grievances have been satisfied: first his “common people” and then the
variety because Nishikanto has made it a representative collection… I asked
Nolini yesterday what people like Tagore mean by saying that only Nishikanto
has an easy mastery over the language while others have not. [This refers to a
letter written by Tagore to an Ashramite in which he remarks: “Among you,
Nishikanto alone has proved his easy mastery over language.”] He says that he
means that our language is rather forced, not spontaneous or easy.
Sri Aurobindo: “Forced” means
something created by the mind?
Nirodbaran: I believe so.
Sri Aurobindo: Then it is not true.
It is, on the other hand, something coming down from above by inspiration. [34]
23 January 1940
Nirodbaran: Nishikanto asks why at
times he is seized with a repugnance for writing poetry. He burned a lot of his
works at Santiniketan during such seizures. Here also attacks come occasionally
and he questions himself, “What is the use of writing after all?” And this
hampers his work, he says.
Sri Aurobindo: These moods come to
many people. They are a kind of Tamas (inertia) which should not be indulged
in.
Nirodbaran: Nishikanto says that it
would be useful not to write if he could meditate or think of the Divine
instead. This he can’t do. “Then why not write?” he argues, but the feeling of
repugnance comes all the same.
Sri Aurobindo: It has to be
rejected…
Nirodbaran: Nishikanto was asking
if you would write an appreciation of his book.
Sri Aurobindo: For publication?
Nirodbaran: Yes. I replied that you
would never do it. He argued that you had done it for Dilip. I asked: “Where?”
And I added, “Sri Aurobindo has only given his opinion poem by poem as he has
also done in your case. If Dilip published the opinions, it was his own doing.”
Sri Aurobindo: Quite so. I cannot
write a public appreciation for a member of my own Ashram. Tagore has given his
appreciation. That should be enough. [35]
24 March 1940
Nirodbaran: One criticism of
Nishikanto’s book is out.
Sri Aurobindo: I was wondering why
no criticism had been made by anybody. What does it say?
Nirodbaran: It is by Buddhadev. He
says that Nishikanto, by using fine images and rhythms, gives us pictures as
well as sound-patterns so that both eye and ear get plenty of joy.
Sri Aurobindo: Well, what more does
he want?
Nirodbaran: He is lamenting over
Nishikanto’s exclusion of his prose-poems and also his previous poetry.
Bengalis think that his early work was wonderful.
Sri Aurobindo: I didn’t see
anything in it. Does Nishikanto think like them?
Nirodbaran: Perhaps not. Buddhadev
says that there are seeds of a great poet in him but they are likely to be
spoiled if he remains secluded in the Pondicherry Ashram. The complaint is that
he writes in the same way and on the same subject all the time.
Sri Aurobindo: He surely doesn’t
write in the same way. As for the subject, others also write on the same
subject, their own, though other than Nishikanto’s.
Nirodbaran: These people seem to be too much enamoured of their prose-poems. They think prose-poetry is a great creation. [36]
31 March 1940
Nirodbaran: Nishikanto says that
Becharlal has asked for his poems.
Sri Aurobindo: Why does he want
them when he says they are too philosophic and thus unfit for publication?
Nirodbaran: Nishikanto asks the
same question and, besides, he wonders why one who speaks against the Ashram
should want them.
Sri Aurobindo: But since he is
asking for them Nishikanto can send them. Criticism is no reason why poems
shouldn’t be sent. And Becharlal himself doesn’t want his criticism to be taken
seriously: otherwise why should he ask for poems he doesn’t like?
Purani: Yes, and if the poems are
published the public will see that Becharlal is himself going against his own
criticism.
Nirodbaran: According to
Bhattacharya, there seems to be a section of the public in
Sri Aurobindo: In what way?
[Nirodbaran explains how
Nishikanto’s usage of words like womb, prostitute, worm, insect, phlegm and
buttocks is being criticized. Sri Aurobindo refutes all criticisms.]
Nirodbaran: Have you seen
Nishikanto’s song sent to you the other day by Dilip?
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, what about it?
Nirodbaran: There is one expression
in it—“own dream”—about which there is a dispute. Nishikanto says he has used
the first part of it in the sense of the Self, which Dilip says nobody will
understand and should be changed.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, it can’t be
taken as the Self; but I understood it to mean one’s self dream which one can’t
get away from. It is one’s own creation and has not been imposed upon one and
one has to fulfil it. In that sense it is all right.
Nirodbaran: Dilip says that what
the poet has tried to express is not important: what is important is whether
the expression has come right and people will understand it in that sense.
According to him, Nishikanto’s word will be understood as “own dream”.
Sri Aurobindo: It is not a question
of understanding only. The feeling too has to be considered. We must see
whether one feels something even if one does not understand.
Nirodbaran: Nishikanto says that we
have to see the drift of the whole poem instead of considering a single
expression taken separately. His whole poem’s idea, he says, is that what
appears as “illusion” or “dream” is not “dream”, it is something real of one’s
own Self. If that word is changed, the entire meaning will be spoiled. The two
words coming together have produced the emphasis.
Sri Aurobindo: He is quite right.
If the word is changed, the lyrical beauty of the poem will be spoiled. One has
also to see the implication.
Nirodbaran: Nishikanto seems to
agree with Dilip. Dilip goes too much by the mind: what is intellectually not
clear to him is suspect.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes, he follows the
old tradition of his father and others. Here the poetry is trying to be
suggestive. In his own poetry intellectuality is quite in place. [37]
1 April 1940
Purani: Amal was asking if you
would be publishing any poetry.
Sri Aurobindo: Poetry? Perhaps
after thirty years. Considering the criticism of Nishikanto’s poetry it seems
better to write for private reading than for publication. [38]
8 August 1940:
Purani: You have seen Patrika’s review of Nishikanta’s book?
While Tagore has praised his chhanda
[rhythm] and bhāshā [language],
people call it halting and Sanskritised.
Sri Aurobindo: Stupid review. [39]
9 August 1940
Nirodbaran: Charu Dutt doesn’t seem
to consider Nishikanta’s poetry in Alakananda as first class.
Sri Aurobindo: Is he a good judge
of poetry?
Nirodbaran: I don’t think so.
Sri Aurobindo: Then his opinion has
no value.
Nirodbaran: He didn’t, at first
reading, understand the poems. After he had read them over and over again, they
were clear to him, he said.
Sri Aurobindo: What kind of a mind
these people have, I wonder!
Nirodbaran: They are very simple
poems, except for one or two.
Sri Aurobindo: Quite so.
Nirodbaran: And people object to
Nishikanta’s poems because they are all centred on the Mother and yourself, not
so much because they are spiritual or lack variety.
Sri Aurobindo: How do they know
about the Mother?
Purani: The poems can very well be
taken as addressed to the Divine Mother.
Sri Aurobindo: Yes. Besides, all
poems are not like that—Garur Gadi,
for instance. He has variety too. Of course they are spiritual and mystic. [40]
Sri Aurobindo regarding Nishikanto’s poems
Let’s quote a few remarks of Sri
Aurobindo regarding Nishikanto’s poems:
Swarnashishu
[The Golden Child]: “I suppose the
golden child is the Truth-soul which follows after the silver light of the
spiritual. When it plunges into the black craters of the subconscient, it
releases from it the spiritual light and the sevenfold streams of the Divine
Energy and cleaning itself of the stains of the subconscient, it prepares its
flight towards the supreme Divine (The Mother). It is a very beautiful poem.”
Mānassarovar:
“It is certainly very powerful and beautiful. By O.P. I presume you mean
Overhead Poetry. That I can’t say—the substance seems to be from there, but a
certain kind of rhythm is also needed which I find more difficult to decide
about in Bengali than in English.”
Abhrayamān: “Exceedingly fine all through. I don’t know whether there is not the achieved access to the overhead substance and movement in it—it looks rather like that.”
Jyotirmoyo Sharmeyo [The Luminous Dog]: “The satadal [lotus] is, I suppose, the lotus
of the higher consciousness represented here in a house; the krishnakāye louhokalsi [the dark
iron-pitcher] must represent a formation in the subconscient. The poem is fine
and the form a great improvement on your previous attempt at free verse.”
Mā [The Mother]: “Very fine. Occult
vision—very powerful—each word and symbol expresses the truth. [Addressed to
Nishikanto] About your vision. It came as an answer to your call for the
removal of ugly things in your own nature and you were shown how it would be
effectively done. First a vivid realisation was given of what the lower nature
is, its terrible darkness and ugliness in which men contentedly live. But
having realised its true nature a cry came from your lower nature itself for
the change. You were then shown the light of the higher nature by whose descent
the change could come—the white light of the Mother’s consciousness and a flame
of it descended into you by the usual path and filled you with the light. From
there it descended into the subconscient and brought the light there. As a
result the consciousness (it was the inner consciousness) became like a crystal
pillar connecting the heights with the depths, the superconscient with the
subconscient. In it the image of the Mother filled with the light in her. You
were then shown a symbol of the rupāntar,
the change in the universal Nature. This change was only in seed and in symbol.
Afterwards this part of the vision disappeared and you saw again the darkness
of the lower Nature. But in you the light was there still and the assurance
that it brings. For it is in the individual that the change first must come and
it is with the light and faith in the individual as a support that the wider
change can be made.”
Subornoshikhor [The Golden Summit]: “If
you take the plane as the ordinary life or physical consciousness with the sky
as the ordinary mind and the mountain as the hill of the Divine Truth with the
moonlight cloud as the spiritual Call (the moon is the symbol of the spiritual
mind) and the birds as souls called by the Truth, I think the significance of
the details of the vision will be clear to you.”
Rājhamsa
[The Swan]: “It is truly a marvellous
success…he [Nishikanto] has justified the laghu-guru
metre altogether, sustaining a perfect naturalness and fluency through out such
a long poem.”
Srigal-Trishnā [The Thirst of a Fox]: “I
suppose the meaning is that the lower vital desire leaving the spiritual
control, destroying the soul-forces and those that make for the higher victory
is received into the inner door of the sunconscient (instead of going up
towards the Superconscient) and therefore satisfies its thirst with the
satisfaction of the subconscient impulses. These are the things out of which
the lower triple consciousness (mind, vital or physical) is evolved in its most
violent and inferior manifestations spending in the nābhir ballari [the navel] of Savitri. The sun in pātāl [hell] is the sun of the
Inconscient, the involved Consciousness which keeps all things in itself and
brings them out by the fire of evolution bikāsh
banhite [the fire of manifestation],— Savitri is the energy of the Sun, but
all belongs to the veiled lower manifestation.”
[31] Nirodbaran, Talks with Sri
Aurobindo, Volume I, pp. 336-337
[32] Ibid., pp. 363-364
[33] Ibid., pp. 372-374
[34] Ibid., pp. 376-377
[35] Ibid., pp. 386-387
[36] Nirodbaran, Talks with Sri
Aurobindo, Volume II, pp. 575-576
[37] Ibid., pp. 579-581
[38] Ibid., p. 584
[39] Ibid., p. 841
[40] Ibid., pp. 844-845