Gautam Basu: the curse of an all-embracing vision
by Souvik Guha Sarkar
1
Every original poet is a journey. The poet in search of his own language reinvents the language he is working in. This reinvention is a journey. It is always fascinating to study how an original poet breaks through the given linguistic and thematic fabric of his time and what he finally does with it. It has been seen quite often that originality in poetry turns into complexity and intimidates the light-hearted readers. But generally sublimity in art, effectively tends to reduce the number of true and dedicated appreciators. Gautam Basu, an original poet in Bengali language also faced this problem. As he went on to express the innermost and intense world of his spirit, he became complex and sublime. In his pursuit for a poetic vision, he went back in time, crossed the intellectual boundaries of his own language and created a distinct space for himself. Gautam Bose is a journey in contemporary Bengali Poetry.
2
Coleridge once remarked, “If a man could pass through Paradise in a dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his soul had really been there, and if he found that flower in his hand when he awoke—Ay!—and what then?” He was most certain that a Poet must have visionary powers. Things beyond this mortal world would take fluid shapes in the vision of a poet. This was overall the Romantic notion of a poet. Things have changed completely thereafter.
Whether the intrinsic quality of a poet lies in his or her capacity to move into a visionary state might be a matter of debate in today’s world. Jibanananda Das was a poet in the Romantic sense of the term. He was the last perhaps. City-bred, politically aware Bengali poets in the fifties and sixties were more interested in the reality around them than slipping into personal trances.
End of the sixties witnessed the Naxal Movement. It was a blood-bath that shook the ribs of society. When young Gautam Basu started to pen his first thin book of verses, ‘Annapurna o Shubhokaal’ (Goddess of Grains and Goodtimes) around mid-seventies, he was trying to grapple with the reality around him. The book of verses came out in 1981. Gautam Basu was a young man of twenty six. While going through the poems it becomes evident that his use of indirect, complex sentences is clearly not a kind of language that Subhash Mukhopadhyay or Nirendranath Chakraborty wrote. It was not Sunil Gangopadhyay or Shakti Chattopadhyay. Gautam Basu was closer to Utpal Kumar Basu in his use of language. But there was something else from the very first book— a desire to enter into a world of vision. His lines have been deep, evocative and imagistic.
Look, look, at least a hint
we are the off-springs of fire, momentarily—just like this
from the fields of flood, scream and cries are emanating
towards the aeroplane.
(Poem 7, Annapurna o Shubhokaal)
Gautam Basu’s poems throughout have borne this trait in them and he has deliberately used old unused words to transmit a sense of the archaic in his poems. He uses expressionistic techniques to express his dark, relentless visions.
One cry of a bird that remains unseen in the heaven of darkness,
Tell me, where in that profound darkness its last moments are painted
An oil-lamp burns at the ferry-ghat, on the waters float broken torn lights
unable to carry the hint, shivers, settles, silently waves up once more.
(School Road, Atishay Trinankur Pathe, Through the extreme grassy path)
In his next book of verses, Rasatal (Seventh Hell), he rejects the poetic form of his first two books and plunges into prose-poetry. Here the form doesn’t matter anymore. Here it’s all about his vision. Also, what remains important for this book is the name. Rasatal. It is through this book that he first attempts to connect with Dante’s Inferno. It would be interesting to note that almost none of his contemporaries had imbibed Dante in their poems. Gautam Basu, who was very keen about ancient and medieval literature of the world, brought into contemporary Bengali poetry, the towering visions of Dante. One could find him in search of his own spiritual self. In this search he immediately connected with Dante.
When I had journeyed half of our life’s way,
I found myself within a shadowed forest,
which even in recall renews my fear:
—Inferno
Gautam Basu’s introductory poem in Rasatal begins,
I walk this path everyday, but I don’t get Him all alone in this manner; today suddenly
I end up asking him, ‘What are the shackles?’ We were crossing a bamboo forest, a small group
of people stay here, their chief work is to weave baskets.
‘I am engulfed by Maya, this birth is my shackle, yet not only a shackle, I am on my way to emancipation.’
—Rasatal
It is interesting to note, who is this He in this poem? Is He is the Japanese Zen Buddhist monk Ryokan? (He lived much of his life as a hermit. He is remembered for his poetry and calligraphy). Just as Dante had Virgil, did Gautam Basu invoke Ryokan as his spiritual guide and a fellow traveler? Ryokan’s mention is visible in his book of verses named Swarnagarurchura (Golden Peak of the Garuda).
O fallen leaves, behold, . . .
Climbing is so simple, beautiful
The earth wants to be peaceful
The last moments of sage Ryokan have arrived--
His languid mind looks at the fallen leaves on the path and says,
They are averse to me
They have turned their back to me,
In this unsettling world, they want to leave me!
— Mithilanagari
As Gautam Basu aged as a poet, he got to throw across his real-self into poetry. His measured and crafted sentences now started to bear the stamp of epic literature. Puranic enunciations started to find their ways in his poetry. He had gradually created his own mythical world. He had Ramayana, Mahabharata, Dante and Ryokan in his blood. He saw through them. His world of vision found its shape through them. Here was a poet of the late seventies, who had finally shed off all his local and contemporary material and entered the deep and dark world of the soul.
From the valley of the mountain, I looked deep down--
My entire nervous system erupted in horrible music and drum roll,
I want to turn away from terror, but I can’t
I want to ask for permission to close my eyes—not granted
I asked permission to roll myself down from this mountain,
Permission not granted
I said, O Golden Peak of the Garuda, O the shackles that bind the worldly life,
What kind of a bell roll do I hear
In what colour did you paint my body
My whole body is burning with the curse of an all-embracing vision
I can see down there, soil soaked in sweat and blood . . .
—Swarnagarurchura
This is an example of lofty and intense vision. Dark and profound.
My mind is full of clouds, pulsating darkness all around . . .
Suddenly, a muddy, upright human head shot up from the waters
‘Who are you, traveler? Your end moment hasn’t yet arrived.’
In bloody horror, I pulled at the shoulders of the boatman and cried,
‘Phlegyas! Phlegyas! Save me!’
—Swarnagarurchura
This is sheer Dante here. Unmistakable and sharply mixed with personal turmoil of the poet.
3
Gautam Basu wrote memoir of his spiritual journey in his poems. He was with the mystics. With the Zen thought. With the Upanishads. With Dante. He saw poetry as a vehicle of his most intense emotions. It is here that he differed from his contemporaries. He could have written a lot of poems on different subjects. But he chose to select his moments of intense vision for poetry. In this, he was most certainly a purist. He knew that whatever he was writing was esoteric in nature and would probably never garner a lot of readership. But he had taken a clear stance. Deliberately he had created a cave up there in the cloud-capped misty mountains with his poems. He knew for sure that the road to his cave of poetry would be difficult. Only the ones that are ready to understand him would take all the pains to traverse the complex terrains. For others, he wanted to be invisible to them.
Gautam Basu’s poems brought back to Bengali poetry, the tradition of mythical vision that was somewhat lost after Jibanananda Das.
Bibliography:
- Kabitasangraha, Gautam Basu, Adam
- Inferno, Dante, World of Dante
- Ryokan, Wikipedia
Souvik Guha Sarkar (1979) was born in Kolkata. He holds a master's in English literature from University of Calcutta. His books of poetry include 'Andhakarer Palok' (2014), 'Mahamayar Para' (2021), and 'Faridpur, Bikrampur' (2022). His collection of short stories, 'Pankhawala' is slated for publication.
