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Jayanta Mahapatra as a Poet
Samir K. Dash.
May 17th, 2003
For Jayanta
Mahapatra, the act of writing poetry is a kind of self defence -- 'longing
amid the flow of voices towards a need which' he feels 'is defensive'
(quoted in Parthasarathy, 1991) -- against what he calls the triumph of
silence in the mind'. It is as if he has been 'looking for the voice of
his silence' . His poetry are the remainings of his attempt to discover
the 'town' of his heart -- "there is a town in the heart of man that never
opens..." (Mahapatra, 2003)
Mohapatra's poetry
has also its links and takes shapes from the place of his birth, but his
view on on his birthplaceis rather more emotional than we generally expect
as Orissa keeps for him something that means to him something more than
his birthplace -- a place where each dust has the impression of his past
roots:
To Orissa, to this
land in which my roots lie and lies my past and in which lies my beging
and my end... (Mahapatra, 1981)
'His is a poetic
explorationof the earth to which he belongs as much as it equally becomes
a search for his self' (Sahane, 1984). And this makes 'the poet in him has
become the place he is born in' (Mohanty, ) Mohapatra in this sense is
related to Orissan myth also. And why shouldn't she? 'The world of myth
has been a source of knowladge for crucial problems in man's existence.
They explain natural, social existence. They explain natural, social ,
cultural and biological facts about the nature and foundation of rituals
and customs' (Padhi, 2000). So, the quest for his roots in Orissan-culture
that has been 'lost in his grand father's conversion to christianity' (Mohanty,
), led him to make 'existensive use of Orissan and myths in his attempt to
discover the roots, illumine the present in the light of the eternal
existential dilemmas' (Padhi, 2000).
But to say just that
Mohapatra's poems signify a quest, is infact a misleading hypothesis.
Bruce King's following comments can be helpful in this regard to
understand what the case of Mohapatra actually is :
It [Mahapatra's
poetry] consists of juxtaposed images and statements, contrasting
particulars and generalisations, opposing descriptions and moods which
begin by appearing associated but which, as a poem progresses, are found
to be like mobiles, an assembledge of pieces which many take multiple,
perhaps an unlimited, number of forms and significances
(Kng, 1986)
When we move our
eyes through ''Konark' we find him confronting the past of the Sun temple
at the beginning and suddenly making his inside out, by discovering his
own self in the 'thin black cry' of the 12 year old legendary boy, Dharama:
I must carry the
stone I found
In the late
afternoon light
let me not think of
myself only
and my pains which
posses
these last breaths
of my life.
( Waiting, 28)
When we come to his
anthology of poems Relationship, the 'obscurity' regarding
Mahapatra's vision gains support, as here also he attempts in 'evoking the
myths and traditions of Orissa, and at the same time articulating the
sensative responses of his self to his spiritual aesthetic as well as
physical heritage and environment' (Das, 1993).
In his anthology
A rain of Rites that adds a new dimension of Mahapatra's philosophical
retrospect on various themes like sex, love and human relationship, to his
poetry through the brilliant piece like 'Hunger', 'A Whorehouse in
Calcutta Street', 'Missing Person', 'Indian Summer', we suddenly realise
that there are so many emotions in Mahapatra apart from those related to
his own place and myths. Suddenly there is the erruption of his heart in
the manner, which is similar to that of Shiv K. Kumar or Kamala Das and is
recognised by the bold treatment of the themes of the poem. But after
meditating we find that the case is not what we thought it to be. It is
infact become more obscure in dealing with its theme.
the more we enter
into any of these poems, the more struggle we have to undertake to capture
what Mahapatra is after exactly. Puspinder Syal comments in this regard
that 'Any reader of [...] Mohapatra's poems, may well be warned that a
struggle will have to be undertaken in reading them, a struggle which
perhaps has no conclusion and answers' (Syal, 1994).
There are also
causes for this kind of obscurity in Mahapatra's poems, outside what we
have mentioned and these causes are related to how we generally view
Indian poetry. Bijaya Kumar Nanda's essay 'The problem of Teaching Jayanta
Mahapatra's Poetry' throws some light in this regard :
Student who read
English and American poetry, expect the anglo American modernist code in
his poetry.Mahapatra's poetry is significantly free from this code. His
poetry is not the poetry of alienation and expressing feelings that echo
early twentieth century theories and practices. Particularly, he has not
used the ironic mode with sharply focoused urbane imagery which
constitutes the staple of this modernist tradition
(Nanda, 1996)
More over, we
generally have a habit to study a poem with pre-conceived ideas. In fact
this leads us to surprises and obscurity as we meet strange mode of
expressing the self as we enter the poem. That's why when one one reads
the the title 'A Whorehouse in Calcutta Street', he may mistake by forming
the idea that interpretation of sex in relation to ironical modes of life
might be the central theme and when he goes on reading such ideas lose
their internal balance with out finding any support --
'you miss them in
the house's
dark spaces, how can't you?'
('A Whorehouse in Calcutta Street')
The clue to
understand Mahapatra, is given by the poet himself:
My poems deal with
the life within myself where the mind tries to find a sort of coherence
from the mass of things in the world outside it'
(quoted in Sunday Observer, May 27th, 1984)
References:
Das, Bijaya
Kumar 'Jayanta Mahapatra's 'Relationship': a Study of myth
and Meaning', Critical Essays on
Poetry, Kalyani Pub.,
New Delhi, 1993
King,
Bruce 'The Shape of Solitude', The Poetry of Jayanta
Mahapatra,
ed. by Madhusudan Prasad, Sterling
Publishers Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi, 1986
Mahapatra, Jayanta.
From a paper delivered on his experience in life, at the
Annual Ceremony of P.G. Department of
English,
Ravenshaw College, 18 April, 2003
------
from speech after receiving the Sahitya Academi
Award for his book Relationship,
1981
Mohanty, Niranjan
'Quest for Roots: Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra', N.D.,
N.P.
Nanda, Bijay kumar
'The Problems of teaching Jayanta Mahapatra'sPoetry',
Ravenshaw Journal of English
Studies, vol: VI,1996
Padhi, Saroj
Kumar 'Jayanta Mahapatra's 'Temple': A Study in Myth',
Ravenshaw Journal of English
Studies, vol: X, No: 1-2,
2000
Sahane, V.A.
'The Naked Earth and Beyond: The Poetry of Jayanta
Mohapatra', Perspectives on Indian
poetry in English,
ed. by M.K. Naik, abhinav Pub., New
Delhi, 1984
Sayal, Pushpinder
'New Quest', World Literature today,Spring 1994
©
Samir K. Dash, May
17th, 2003
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