Wednesday, February 8, 2017

A Note On Toru Dutt’s Poetry

                                                                                 


















                                                    
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. 
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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





                                                   

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