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(Case. 3) Towards the Splendid City

Pablo Neruda won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971. As a poet, he has influenced generations of writers. This is the speech he gave upon winning the Nobel Prize. Through this speech, he illustrates two critical phases of his life. One was when he had to leave his homeland, long before he had become who he is now. At the time, he was just like any other ordinary man untouched by fame and unaware of his skills with verses. The second is when he is now an established persona. He reflects back on his role as a poet, about his achievements by being a poet. Neruda starts his speech describing his birthplace as distant and antipodean. Back then he might not have realized these characteristics about Chile. But now that he is not attached to that land, he can describe it more explicitly. These very words signal the readers to the nature of discussion that Neruda is going to undertake. The journey to leave Chile was as contrasting as it can be to the status that he has reached now. Neruda had embarked on a journey that very few people may have ever undertaken. Hence, he didnt have anyone or anything to guide him on this untrodden path. The road was tortuous. He had to overcome obstacles like the huge trees, impassable rivers, immense cliffs and desolate expanses of snow. But he ploughed on blindly seeking the quarter in which my own liberty lay. New obstacles kept appearing at every possible turn. And the atmosphere grew increasing hostile. There is an age old belief that when one is in a desperate situation everything starts going wrong, people start deserting him, and the person starts feeling hard pressed to keep on going, if for nothing else, at least for the sake of his mission. This is what he meant by the words the solitude, the danger, the silence, and the urgency of my mission. Many times in life we have to make decisions which are not favorably looked at by the people around us. But we have to undertake it because it might be the only possible way to achieve what we want. People will call it a foolish idea and turn against us. They will try to put obstacles on our paths to dissuade us. In fact life itself will put us in situations where we will be in a fix. The only way to overcome such situations is to never lose sight of our goal and keep on going till we reach it. On the way, sometimes Neruda used to see faint trails indicating the passage of others before him. He also came across burial mounds in memory of those who could make it till that point but not any further. A burial mound indicates respect being shown to the person buried there. He paid them homage before moving further. On seeing these burial mounds, he could have been dissuaded by the hazardous nature of his journey. Instead, he paid his respects to the ones who had at least tried to embark on that same path, even though they could not make it and moved forward.

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Neruda mentions that on the way, they came across a river with calm water, clear and still as a mirror. But when they started crossing the river, they realized that the water current was not as placid as it appeared. His horse lost footing and he was almost drowned. In life there will be seemingly innocent moments which in reality are very crucial. Decisions taken at such moments can either make or mar everything. Alternatively, there will be obstacles in life which will look daunting. Many a times well come almost close to giving up. In such situations, only perseverance in our action will be able to help. Amidst this wilderness, Neruda and his escorts came to a beautiful little meadow huddled among the rocks: clear water, green grass, wild flowers, the purling of brooks and the blue heaven above, a generous stream of light unimpeded by leaves. In the midst of the space, the skull of an ox was set up. Coins and food were placed in the eye sockets of the skull. It was a sacrifice intended for stray travelers and all kinds of refugees who would find bread and succor in the dead ox's eye sockets. Sacrificing food and money for complete strangers when one cant afford to do so, seems to be a very foolish decision. But Neruda realized that this simple act actually had a very deep significance. The act stood for the link between unknown people, a care, an appeal and an answer even in the most distant and isolated solitude of this world. In our day-to-day lives, when we face a depressing day, a smile even from a stranger do wonders in uplifting our mood. Just before the travelers reached the frontier of Chile, they had to pass the night between two mountains. They found some half-ruined buildings where they came upon a group of people sitting around a fire, singing and dancing to the notes of a guitar. It the first human voice they had encountered during the entire journey. These men gladly shared their food and fire with the weary travelers. The song they sang was a song of love and distance, a cry of love and longing for the distant spring, from the towns we were coming away from, for life in its limitless extent. Before retiring for the night, they washed themselves at a warm stream of volcanic water flowing through the mountain. Neruda describes this experience as warmth which welled out from the mountain chain and received us in its bosom. Happily we splashed about, dug ourselves out, as it were, and liberated ourselves from the weight of the long journey on horseback. We felt refreshed, reborn, baptized, when in the dawn we started on the journey of a few miles which was to eclipse me from my native land. We rode away on our horses singing, filled with a new air, with a force that cast us out on to the world's broad highway which awaited me. In the same manner, when we are going through tough times, there will come moments of joy, however short, which liven us up and we are ready to face life with a new vigor. For example, students have to study hard to learn and get good grades. Studying continuously for hours can take a toll on a students mental and physical health. So, it is advisable that the students take some time out for recreation, be it sports or some fun get-together with friends. This will break the monotony of a heavy study schedule and will also be refreshing. Neruda offered a few coins in gratitude for their songs, for the food and lodging. But his offer was rejected. He explains that they might have done this out of a feeling of kinship with them. They also might have been going through the same circumstances and experiencing the same feelings of loneliness, as these travelers have been experiencing through out their journey.

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In the next part of his speech Neruda reflects on his role as a poet. He emphasizes that he did not learn poetry writing by merely reading books nor is he of the notion that he is capable of giving advice to the up-coming poets. He says that he contributes his success more to the help he had received from random sources during his struggle as a poet. These include contributions from the earth and from the soul. In his eyes, poetry is an action, ephemeral or solemn, in which there enter as equal partners solitude and solidarity, emotion and action, the nearness to oneself, the nearness to mankind and to the secret manifestations of nature. According to him, poetry unites and people by bringing together the reality and the dreams in man. In this manner, poetry preserves man and his elements and enhances his sense of communalism. At this point, he refers back to his experience during the afore mentioned journey and the lessons he learned from it. He mentions that he is really not sure as to why he was taught those lessons. He doesnt know whether it was for imparting them to the others or whether it was all a message which was sent to him by others as a demand or an accusation. From this experience, Neruda gains the knowledge that there is no insurmountable solitude. This is because, in the end all the paths lead to the same goal, i.e. to share ones own identity and learning with others. It is true that while gaining this lessons one must struggle alone but once he reaches the treasure of knowledge he exults and ultimately celebrates by sharing whatever he has learned with others who havent had the same experience. In this way, he also becomes aware of being human and believing in a common destiny. He refers to his experience of the dancing around the ox skull to illustrate this. What exactly is poetry? A collection of verses, a communication, or the evocation of feeling. Neruda believes that people who criticize poetry are not the enemies. They are simply not in agreement with the poet as poetry can be interpreted relatively. A specific poem who means one thing to one person may mean a different thing to the other person. It all depends on the individuals perspective. For this reason no poet has any considerable enemy other than his own incapacity to make himself understood by the most forgotten and exploited of his contemporaries, and this applies to all epochs and in all countries. People sometimes tend to think that poets have special gifts. Their verses feel like some weird language as one can always interpret it any way they want. Neruda clarifies that this is a misconception. On the contrary, he believes that the baker, who performs his humble task of baking bread to feed his fellow human beings, and thereby contributing to mankind, is a better poet. And if he as a poet is given an opportunity makes his own contribution to mankind, he will diligently do the task. He believes that only in this manner of being ordinary people, a poet will be able to render poetry a solid definition as to its meaning and utility. Neruda is also trying to bring to our notice the fact that people try to find the truth or some part of it using the reality as it exists. They try to correct their mistakes using the realistic assumptions and other things which essentially led to the mistakes in the first place. Thus they are imprisoned in a web of which there is no escape. By the time they

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become aware of it, it is too late and they are stuck in the building barrier they themselves have erected. On the other hand, if they neglect the reality, it is more like being on a place without a foothold. The things they construct are baseless and they find themselves where nobody understands them. There appears a huge gap in communication. This is where the writers and the poets try to contribute but attempting to fill this gap in the world with their fictitious creations. They create fables and stories back grounded in some mundane places and make life more exciting and more understandable. This is exactly what even Neruda has tried to do. We can take as an example for this the way he exaggerates about simple life. He expects new writers to take over this task and carry forth from were he has left when he is no longer capable. As a poet, Neruda realizes that his role was to become one among the masses and help them in garnering hope to see them through their struggles. This will help the millions of people who have learnt neither to read nor to read at all, who cannot communicate to each other, are to feel at home in the area of dignity without which it is impossible for them to be complete human beings. Only then, people will start believing in the authors and in turn they will also be able to contribute in developing the nation. Otherwise, itll be only those people who have been able to show tangible achievements like those who with stones and metals made marvelous towers, jewels of dazzling brilliance who will be able to rule and the rest of them will be condemned to lead a life of indignity. This is a vicious practice and it has been going on for centuries. If this loop is not broken once, it will continue for ever. In every human being are combined the most distant epochs, passivity, mistakes, sufferings, the pressing urgencies of our own time, the pace of history. Hence, whenever we struggle and then have hope, we should not think that we are the only ones who are being made to face the ups and downs of life. There are countless other people who are facing the same fate as us. Maybe, the circumstances and events are different, but struggle is struggle and hope is hope. They are all the same irrespective of time, place and people. Neruda questions the practice of taking sides. He asks, But what would have become of me if, for example, I had contributed in some way to the maintenance of the feudal past of the great American continent? How should I then have been able to raise my brow, illuminated by the honor which Sweden has conferred on me, if I had not been able to feel some pride in having taken part, even to a small extent, in the change which has now come over my country? At all times, there is solace only in working for good of the people. Therefore, Neruda has opted to work with the logic of divided responsibility. He believed that his duties as a poet involve friendship not only with the rose and with symmetry, with exalted love and endless longing, but also with unrelenting human occupations which I have incorporated into my poetry. He refers back to his birthplace and compares the stark contrast between where he is now and where he was then. He quotes Rimbaud, the Visionary, "A l'aurore, arms d'une ardente patience, nous entrerons aux splendides Villes." "In the dawn, armed with a burning patience, we shall enter the splendid Cities." His homeland was isolated geographically. The environment as well as the terrain was relatively hostile. Similarly, as a poet too, his work was more of a provincial nature, oppressed and rainy. Whereas,

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the other poets mostly tried to inject laughter and emulate beauty in their work, Neruda had always tried to ground his work in reality. He doesnt hesitate in calling a spade a spade. In spite of differing from general norm, he achieved success as a poet only because he had put his trust in man and never lost hope. Neruda concludes his speech by wishing goodwill to all the workers and the poets. He expresses his own vision of a good future by quoting Rimbaud again: Only with a burning patience can we conquer the splendid City which will give light, justice and dignity to all mankind. Whatever we do, whichever method of struggle we choose, whatever our goal is, we should always be patient. Without patience, all our efforts will be in vain. It takes a long time to become a leader. The point from when the process starts to the point when one actually gets acknowledgement can be compared to a long journey. Not everyone is a born leader or is born into a family of leaders. There may be a world of difference between the environments at the two ends of this stretch of time. For some, the environment may be hostile initially. The hardship he endures during that time goes a long way in shaping him into the person he is now. There would be many obstacles on the way. They will be daunting in the forms of family problems, social environment, our own talents and aptitude to tackle these problems. At times we will be cowed down by the enormity of whatever we have undertaken. The only solution is to have patience and keep on going. We will stumble at times, but should we stop? No, we should get up and resume our journey. Sometimes our lives will be smooth, but at times, decisions taken at such seemingly innocent times are very crucial in achieving our goals. But is a leaders life always that harsh? Not necessarily. There will always be like minded people to give us company. Strangers will commend us on our efforts and encourage us on our endeavors. So, maybe for that short span of time well be able to be free from the conflicts raging through our minds. Now, in the second part of the speech, Neruda has talked about his role as a poet and the utility of poetry in general. It is necessary for a leader to have clear-cut goals and accordingly devise strategies to achieve them. For example, the way he tries to compare the supposedly mystic poetry writing to the simple humble task of baking bread, illustrates his vision of promoting poetry. He is not denouncing bread baking, which would have obviously worked against his idea. Instead, he first glorifies the activity and then draws parallels to show how poetry can also be useful to mankind. A good leader will not take sides, until it is for the good of his followers. Here comes the human connection. Communication plays the most crucial role in this case. Throughout, the article, Neruda talks about sharing some light-hearted moments with strangers, working for the masses, link between unknown people, a caring for them, etc. A leader is a leader only because of the people around him. If a leader goes on talking about lofty ideals which doesnt include any good for the people, he wont be considered a leader for long. Sometimes, a leader is more like a guide or a servant of the people, rather then one

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leading them and being served by them. History gives us thousands of examples in this context. Whenever a ruler has turned tyrannical, there has been a revolution and the ruler has been dethroned. Whereas, whenever there has appeared an ordinary man who has worked for the good of the people, he has been held in high esteem. In the end, we also come to realize, from this article, that the most important virtues of a leader are patience and perseverance. Persevering in our goals and having patience while persevering keeps us from giving up our goals and wishes even before we achieve them. These are two very important elements in getting results. After all, in the end, delivering results is what changes an ordinary man into a leader.