Humanitarian Voice in the Poems of Jayanta Mahapatra

Jitumani Choudhury Research scholar, Gauhati University

Jayanta Mahapatra (1928) needs no specific introduction today; he is undoubtedly the torchbearer of modern Indian English poetry. He has provided a quite matured connotation of modern Indian life through his poems and thus made a legacy. Jayanta Mahapatra is a conscious observer of society, of tradition, custom, and of changing human behavior in a fragmented world. He projects the consequences of globalization, consumerism, western science and philosophy on social construct and value system of India. Apart from the western influences, Indian political system and caste as well as class discrimination have laid a crucial impact on the social construct initiating a search for identity. In his poems, there is a prevailing note of irony and melancholy which reminds us of metaphysical deviation from our existential root. Mahapatra portrays the facts related to sacred soil of Orissa, the reality that he perceives around society. But his observation does not confine to or represent only Orissa; his poetry represents the changing perspectives of modern Indian society. His poetry provides a precise concept of the psychology of modern man who emphasizes more on the westernization than on traditional values of their own. He juxtaposes tradition and modernity and thereby demonstrates a contrasting picture of sordid civilization. About Mahapatra, Pradip Kumar Patra says that: So far as his thoughts are concerned, these turn out to be decentred and intellectual more and more. Just like an artist giving shape to his image, he gives a finishing touch to his thought upon which his poems are based. As a poet from Orissa, he is definitely influenced by its

artistry visible in the architecture, painting and sculpture of this land of myths and legends.1 Mahapatra portrays and scrutinizes the panic condition of modern man, their sufferings and traumas in his poems in a symbolically significant way. He has projected the confusing state of modern man who is encircled by numerous problems, and consequently deviated from their ethical and philosophical grounds. Mahapatras poems reveal a kind of conflict, internal and external, which is caused by the isolation, loss of faith and looming poverty. Poverty, servitude and nonsustenance get an acute expression in his poems. While projecting all these issues, Mahapatra had confronted with a dichotomous situation which attributed a subjective touch to his poetry. Instant metaphors used in his poetry are door, hunger, need, quest, pain and knowledge through which he has tried to highlight the convention of postcolonial Oriya society in particular and India society in general. His poetry portrays the nation as a whole suffers without or established tradition for close practical or therapeutic analysis of the active dynamic self or one persons varied interpersonal roles.2 He ironically presents a society, loomed with caste and religious customs, where discrimination is still continuing on the pretext of democratic brotherhood. Thesis of ethical downfall of modern man has potential exposure in his poem Hunger: I heard him say: my daughter, she is just turned fifteen Feel her. Ill be back soon, your bus leaves at nine. The sky fell on me, and a fathers exhausted wile. Long and lean, her years were cold as rubber. She opened her wormy legs wide. I felt the hunger there, the other one, the fish slithering, turning inside. Hunger is used in this poem as a metaphor, connoting the physical hunger in one hand and craving for food in the other. The second kind of hunger initiates to blew off the first kind of hunger. So, it is the stomach-hunger which compels one class of people, as the fisherman and his daughter in the poem, to engage themselves in publicly denounced activities. The poet depicts a darker aspect of society where a father pushes his daughter into prostitution and he acts himself as pimp and
Patra, Pradip kumar. The Still, Sad Music of Humanity in the Poems of Jayanta Mahapatra. The Indian Imagination of Jayanta Mahapatra. Ed. Jaydeep Sarangi and Gauri Shankar Jha. New Delhi: Sarup and Sons, 2006. p- 90. 2 Perry, John Oliver. Determinations of Poetry. The Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra- A Critical Study. Ed. Madhusudan Prasad. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1986. p- 52.
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thereby he focuses on personal and social paradoxes of society. Mahapatras remark in this context worth mentioning: I should like to emphasize the experience held in those lines, of the truth that is contained in the poem; 3 Mahapatra reveals his anguish and pain throughout his poems with a humanist overtone. His humanitarian voice is explicit more precisely in the following lines: Then think of secret moonlight of the women left behind, their false chatter, perhaps their reminding themselves of looked after children and of home: [The Whorehouse in a Calcutta Street] The poem The Whorehouse in a Calcutta Street illustrates the condition and plight of the whores, their desires and suppressed fantasies directing the poets sympathy and compassion, apart from the revelation of the image of social atrophy. Though Mahapatra renders the darker side of contemporary society, he has a soft corner for those downtrodden people and that has proclaimed his humanistic perception of society. Mahapatra doesnt denounce the prostitute for their anti-social works; rather he expresses his compassion for them. He tries to explore the root cause of prostitution; the circumstances that compels them to be thus. He satirizes the societys hunger and the starving people which cause the result in prostitution. The poem also highlights the conflict of society and individual self, resulting a dichotomy within the self. Mahapatra, above all, scrutinizes the human nature, their anguish, desires (unfulfilled), their ethical downfall without creating bias. In another poem entitled Rice he depicts the plight of men during the time of famine. He laments on the present condition of Orissa, of its people and their state of helplessness that lead them to anti-social works. He writes: But did the world believe in an exhausted fairy tale, when innocence was small enough to fit inside the turnings [Rice, from Random Descent] Again he writes in Traveller
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Mahapatra, Jayanta. Door of Paper: Essays and Memoirs. Delhi: Authorspress, 2007. p-19-20.

Somewhere, inside a room, a girl is dying in her mothers arms. Elsewhere some one revenges himself for his broken life. I look at people. At my little misery. [From Random Descent] These lines give a precise demonstration of Mahapatras mind and speculation, his feeling of sympathy for the distressed. Mahapatra delivers the thesis that the proud of the glorious historic past cant soothe the torment and hard times of present society, and hence he describes the past in the context of present turmoil as exhausted fairy tale. Traveller explores the issues of solitude, memories of pain experience by the poet himself and also by the common man, death and grim cultural paradox that demonstrates the survival of our basic humanity. To authenticate his position in the contemporary society with its follies and grim fate, Mahapatra uses the symbol of looking glass- the mirror- which reflects the social instability as well as individual complexity implying his humanitarian overtone. He writes: In front of me is a world that doesnt seem to care. --------------------------------------------------------Still I do not know what I want. I like to be here a long time but that wouldnt help me to make sense. Im not sure I know myself yet. And I try to stand and bear my pain. [ The Looking Glass, from The Lie of Dawns] The metaphor of looking glass stands to represent the facets of reality. In one face the poet exists, and the society is exposed by the other side. The poet is the mirror image of the society; he has perceived the image in the mirror which he claims to be unknown. As the society is the construct of individuals, individual identity and struggle must be reckoned for the assessment of the society. The image in the mirror is inscrutable and unfamiliar to the poet, as for the society. This unfamiliarity creates the disorder in the social construct. Mahapatras objective- realist view of life has certainly arisen up his humanistic perception.

Mahapatras humanistic note is mingled with satire and irony. He projects the ills of society, of the social system that lead the people towards an uncertain future. He satirizes the negligence and irresponsibility of modern Oriyas towards their glorious, mighty cultural heritage which initiate the downfall of Orissa. The poets humanitarian voice and the concept of preservation spin out of his prospect of fidelity towards antiquity. He depicts a contrasting image of the past and present stipulation of Orissa releasing an emotional disturbance within, that initiates compassion and pity for the common man.

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Bibliography Primary Sources 1. A Board of Editors. Ed. An Anthology of Indian English Poetry. New Delhi: Orient Longman. 1995 2. Mahapatra, Jayanta. Random Descent. Bhubaneswar: Third Eye Communication. 2005 3. Mahapatra, Jayanta. The Lie of Dawns: Poems 1974-2008. New Delhi: Authors Press. 2009 4. Mahapatra, Jayanta. Door of Paper: Essays and Memoirs. Delhi: Authorspress, 2007. 5. Mahapatra, Jayanta. Letter from India: Summerdusts and a Scent of Mangoes. The Hudson Review, Vol. 39, No. 2 (Summer, 1986), pp. 185-191

Secondary Sources 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Naik, M.K. A history of Indian English Literature.New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. Rptd- 2006. Perry, John Oliver. Neither Alien nor Postmodern:Jayanta Mahapatras Poetry from India. The Kenyon Review, New Series. Vol. 8. No. 4(Autumn, 1986) p-55-66. Prasad, Madhusudan. Ed. The Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: A Critical Study.New Delhi: Sterling Publishers.1986. Sarangi, Jaydeep and Jha, Gauri Shankar. Ed. The Indian Imagination of Jayanta Mahapatra. New Delhi: Sarup and Sons. 2006 Shankar, R. Jayanta Mahapatra: The Poet. New Delhi: Prestige. 2003 Swain, Rabindra k. The Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: A Critical Study. New Delhi: Prestige.2000. *****