Toru Dutt was one of the Indo-Anglian writers of
Pre-Independence India who died at a very tender age before her poetic talent
matured into full bloom. Yet her poems show a great promise of her future
career had she lived longer. In this aspect she is compared to John Keats who
also died at a very young age. Just like the poetry of Keats her poems are also
romantic and sensuous with picturesque images and sonorous rhythm. She was born
on 4th March in 1856 in Rambanagar in Calcutta. Her father was a Govt. officer
who was popular as a poet and linguist. He published “The Dutt Family Album” in
1870. His other poetical works are “The Loyal Hours” (1876), and “Cherry
Stones” (1881). Her mother Kshetramani was well-versed in English and Bengali and
translated “The Blood of Jesus” from English into Bengali . Her Cousins – Govin
Chunder, Hur Chunder and Greece Chunder—were all poets.
According to Bishop Clifford Toru inherited her rich
intellectual gifts from her father’s side and the moral beauty and sweetness of
character from her mother. In her brief life span she had to face many sudden
changes and shocks. When she was six, her family converted to Christianity in
1862. In 1865 her brother Abju died. Toru with her sister studied Milton’s
“Paradise Lost” to derive consolation. In 1869 both sisters left for Europe. They
attended a school at Nice, a south-eastern city in France. Both of them learnt
French in a very short period. When they were in London they started
translating works from French to English. In 1871 they made friends with Mary Martin
with whom Toru shared her experiences and feeling through letters. In 1873 they
returned to India.
Aru died on July 23,
1874 at the age of twenty. Toru was very much saddened by her sister’s untimely
death. In 1875 she started learning Sanskrit and within ten months she was able
to read Sanskrit classics like The Ramayana, The Mahabharata, Vishnu Purana,
Sakuntala and Bhagavata Purana. In March 1876 her book “A Sheaf Gleaned from
French Fields” was published. In this
book she translated poems from one hundred
French poets. She started translating
ancient Indian stories from Sanskrit to English. But she did not live to see
her book “Ancient Ballads and Legends of Hindustan” in print. She died of T.B.
on August 30, 1877 in Calcutta. She was buried at the C.M.S. cemetery in
Calcutta near her beloved brother and sister. Her book was later published in
1882 with introduction written by Edmund Gosse.
Out of the nine poems only seven were found. Her father completed the
gap with “The Legend of Dhruva” and “The royal Ascetic and the Hind”. Her other books are “Bianca or young Spanish
Maiden” and a French Novel by name “Le Journal de Mlle D’Arvers”, a romance of
259 pages.
.
Toru Dutt’s desire for identity and her study of Sanskrit
prompted her to write these poems. She recollected the old stories told by her
mother and gave poetic expression to them without deviating from the spirit of
the original version. The common feature in all these ballads is the use of
octosyllabic meter (Eight syllables in each line) she borrowed from the English
Ballad. She also used blank verse in poems like “Sita”. These poems show her
intense love of her own land and for its traditions. This is “her chief legacy
to posterity.” Her poems reveal the soul of India through the medium of English
poetry. She had a great gift of story-telling arousing interest and curiosity
in the minds of readers. In descriptive poetry she is superior. According to Srinivasa Iyyengar : she is “a good craftsman in verse, her
feeling for words impeccable, and her eye and ear were alike trained for poetic
description or dialogue. We find the ideals of Indian womanhood, essentials of
Indian philosophy and scenes and sights of Indian landscape in her lyrical
poems.
Her Poem “Sita” is
one of the best ballads in which she decribes the chaste surroundings of
Valmiki’s ashram with a delicate pathos in the closing lines;”when shall those
children by their mother’s side/ Gather, ah, me! As erst even tide!” In
“Savitri”, the longest poem in five parts, she expressed the Hindu philosophy
and Karma Siddhantha in a dramtic way. Her stories are true to their originals
in Sanskrit and objective in treatment. Her lyrical descriptions do not
obstruct the flow of the narratives. She gave a modern turn or interpretation
to some of the ancient legends. By using dramatic speeches she excelled in
portraying women characters like Savitri, Sita and Uma. Her verse reminds that of Keats in
sensitiveness and worship of beauty.
Her poem “The Lotus”
shows her imaginative power and deft handling of the sonnet form. The poem “Our
Casuarina Tree” written in eleven line Stanza form recaptures the past memories
of her childhood in the company of her family and contrasts the impermanence of
human life with the immortality of Nature symbolized by the Casuarina tree. The
casuarina tree with its rugged trunk and with creepers winding around it stood
like a huge python. It is the shelter for humming bees and singing birds. In
the morning the poet is awakened by the voice of singing birds and the sight of
grey baboon sitting on the branches with her puny baby monkeys. But the poet
says : “ But not because of its magnificence / Dear is the casurina tree to my
soul/ Beneath it we have played; though years may roll/ O sweet companions,
loved with love intense,/ For your sakes
shall the tree be ever dear ! “ The poet
pays a glowing tribute to the casurina tree as it brings to her mind her happy
past memories and the tree is a perpetual reminder of her family members who
are no more. The tree like Keats’ nightingale is deathless with its perpetual
glory for ever stored in people’s minds.
In “ Prehlad “ the
story is narrated in a simple and straightforward manner with apt dialogues.
The incarnation of Narasimha was just touched upon without closer details. : “A
stately sable warrior sprang/ Like some phantasma of the brain/ He had a lion
head and eyes/ A human body, feet and hands/ colossal…”. The child devotee Prehlad informs his father:
“The wise wait patiently on time.” “That is true knowledge which can show / the
glory of the living gods. “That is true
knowledge which can change / Our very natures with its glow. “The sciences whate’er their range / Feed but
the flesh and make a show.” “When the boy was threatened with death punishment,
he says “Is death annihilation-No ? / New worlds will open on my view/ When
persecuted hence I go / The right is right—the true is true.”
In “Sindhu” the devotion of Shravan Kumar
(here named as Sindhu) towards his aged and blind parents is vividly portrayed.
The hunting scene in the forest is described in detail. Sindhu did not think
that king Dasarath was guilty of killing an innocent boy. He says that once he
killed a male bird with his stone sling causing grief to the living female
bird. So he is now punished for his unworthy act of killing an innocent
bird. “Unwittingly the deed was done/ It
is my destiny/ O fear not thou, but pity one/ Whose fate is thus to die.” He
requests Dasarath to carry the pitcher of water to his hungry parents. The
anxious waiting of parents for their only dear son was touchingly described.
When Dasarath placed the dead child in their lap, father said: “Our hearts are
broken. Come, dear wife/ On earth no more we dwell; / Now welcome death, and
farewell Life, / And thou, O king, farewell!”
“ We do not curse thee, God forbid/ But to my inner eye/ The future is
no longer hid, / Thou too shalt like us die.”
“ Die-for a son’s untimely loss!?
Die –with a broken heart! Now
help us to our to our bed of moss/ And let us both depart.”
In “Sita” the three children after hearing the tale of Sita
from their mother imaginatively view at the hermitage where Sita spent her time
after being abandoned by Rama. The chaste surroundings of the hermitage reveal
the chaste character of Sita also. “The white swans glide; there, “whirring
from the brake/ The peacock springs; there herds of wild deer race; / There
patches gleam with yellow waving grain;/ There blue smoke from strange altars
rises light/ There dwells in peace, the poet-anchorite.”The grief of Sita
evoked grief in the hearts of three children also. The poem ends on a nostalgic
note when the poet says “When shall those children by their mother’s side/ Gather,
ah me! As erst eventide?”
In “Jogadya Uma” Toru Dutt showed her skill in portraying a
supernatural character of Uma with deft, suggestive touches. The vendor of
shell-bracelets saw a beautiful maid by the lakeside. The shell-bracelet
perfectly fitted her “Fairer hand”. The pedlar was afraid to see her face as
“she was lovely, but her look/ had something of a high command “. She directed
him to go to her father and take money. Her father was a priest who stays near
the temple in his humble cottage. She says that If her father says that he had
no money, then let him open the red streaked box in which he would find coins
to pay the price of the bangle covered with enamel. The pedlar thought that the maiden seemed like “the
goddess on the Latmos hill “and no painter could paint her beauty and grace.
‘Though her eyes were soft, a ray/ Lit them at times, which kings who saw/ would
never dare to disobey.” When the pedlar approached the priest and told him
about the maid and the bracelet, the priest laughed and said that he had no
daughters and someone had cheated him.
But when the pedlar informed him about the red box, the priest opened
the box and found money just equal to the exact price of the bracelet. Then he realized the maid was none other than the Goddess whom he worshipped in the temple. He felt sad that he had not seen her
in spite of his prayers while the pedlar had seen her directly near the lake.
Both of them ran towards the lake to find her out and none was seen. When the
priest requested her to show the proof of Her presence, suddenly they heard the
sound of silver bells and saw “a rounded arm amidst the lotus buds “lifted from
the lake with the bracelet. Both of them felt happy and took one lotus flower
each in memory of the day when they saw the divine hand. Every year the descendants of the pedlar
offer shell bracelets to the goddess as a token of this happy event.
Though Toru Dutt’s
poetic output is slender, she showed maturity and perfection even at such a
young age and her contribution to Indian English literature will be always
remembered by posterity. "Toru
Dutt remains one of the most astonishing women that ever lived …. Fiery and
unconquerable of soul. These poems are sufficient to place Toru Dutt in the
small class of women who have written English verse that can stand".
(E.J.Thomson )
According
to Lotika Basu, a literary critic, Ancient
Ballads, "for the first time reveals to the West the soul of India
through the medium of English poetry". In fact, scholars are profuse in
their praise of this work for its finely-knit verses full of vigour and variety.
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9th February, 2017 Somaseshu Gutala
