My love knows no birth nor death- Sunil Gangopadhyay
Biswanath Bhattacharya
January 29, 2024, 11:21:55
I have read almost all of Sunil Gangopadhyay's books. Sunil is basically a poet. You will discover Sunil's poetic genius in his prose writings. Who will forget “ There should be a flag of heaven - it should be blue or white. You get hold of me, and I will take you to heaven. “
I recognised Sunil when I read his Aatmaprakash ((Self-revelation) when I was 15 or 16. It was first novel published in 1966-67, the story of an angry young man's frustrations and struggles, was an instant success. I then and then realised that a youth had appeared who would reign over Bengali literature for decades.
Though Sunil gained immense popularity and critical acclaim as a novelist and short-story writer (Satyajit Ray made films based on two of his novels, Aranyer Din Ratri or Days and Nights in the Forest and Pratidwandi or The Adversary), it was his poetry that placed him in the forefront of the Bengali literary world, and that was where he remained until the end, essentially as a poet. He was the founder-editor of Krittibas, a monthly poetry magazine that soon became one of the primary vehicles of modern Bengali poetry. His colleagues in Krittibas included luminaries such as Shakti Chattopadhyay, Tarapada Ray, and Sarat Mukhopadhyay. According to the eminent poet Nirendranath Chakraborti, ten years his senior, Sunil was the central force that held the disparate and brilliant talents in Krittibas together. He was undoubtedly one of the most essential poets in post-war Bengal. He was radically modern in expression, structure, and idea, and at the same time, his poetry was deeply philosophical and radiant.
Not only did Sunil's poems appeal to the charmed circle of intellectuals, they were also trendy among the general public. His language was that of the spoken word, yet it was mellifluous in its rhythm and metre, thus blurring the wall between prose and poetry.
His series of poems addressed to Neera, the elusive woman of his fantasies, his muse and inspiration, continue haunting the imaginations of successive generations of poetry readers. Unlike Tagores Jeeban Debata, who was some mystical muse, Sunil’s Neera, though imaginary, was a woman of flesh and blood. Here was his essential departure from Tagore's romanticism, which almost always had a mystical bent. Though some have criticised Sunil for being uncharitable about Tagore and his works, it would be more accurate to say that Sunil objected to the deification of Tagore by his admirers. He did not dispute Tagore's poetic genius, which he acknowledged more than once.
As a poet, Sunil was very modern with an anarchic and iconoclastic bent. He was a rebel, and that came through in his poetry. On the one hand, Sunil was an unwavering atheist, an undying romantic with an irreverent streak that strained to break down barriers imposed by traditions and societal norms. For example, in his ode to his first love, the goddess Saraswati, he appeals to her as a goddess and a woman. Poetry remained his first love, but novels and short stories won Sunil fame and fortune. For years, he kept the Bengali reading public enthralled by his novels serialised in the pages of Desh, and this was where his much-acclaimed historical novel Shei Shomoy (Those Days) first appeared. Its historical and fictional characters are drawn from the 19th-century Bengal Renaissance, a period of tremendous cultural, social and political ferment. Another masterpiece was Purbo Pashchim (East-West), written with the Bangladesh War of 1971 in the backdrop.
Prothom Alo (First Light), the much-awaited sequel to Shei Shomoy, was published in 1996. It was essentially a fictional exploration of Tagore's life and works. Alas, I have lost the second volume.
Sunil also wrote short stories for both adults and children. His crime/adventure stories centring around the crippled detective Kaka Babu, a middle-aged avuncular figure, was a great favourite of young readers. He also wrote several highly interesting travelogues in a completely different style under Neel Lohit's pseudonym and literary criticisms under another pen name, Sanatan Pathak.
Sunil was between 16-27 at heart, the foremost Bengali romantic after Rabindranath Tagore. One unique thing about him was that he could never say no to anyone.
Sunil was a legend who met legends. He was among the Beats in Greenwich Village, living there for months in the shabby house of Allen Ginsberg open to all, where they chanted “Hare Rama Hare Krishna.” Jack Kerouac, Gregory Corso, and Peter Orlovsky were all there,
Throughout his career, he used several pen names- Neel Lohit, Santan Pathak, and Neel Upadhyay each dwelling on a particular form and writing style.
Several of his novels were made into films by acclaimed directors. At the same time, Satyajit did Pratidhandi ( one of my favourite novels) and Aranyer Din Ratri.
Sunil got a chance to put his vast knowledge of literature, particularly Indian literature, to good use when he took over as Sahitya Akademie's president in 2008. Under him, the Akademie launched a large number of projects to popularise Indian literature across the world, translate works from one Indian language to another, and increase interaction between writers in various Indian languages. Indian literature is one written in many languages. Writers in the Naga and Manipuri languages should not feel isolated because of location. He tried to break the shackles of isolation.
Sunil is the man who travelled to America and won a scholarship from Iowa's celebrated International Writing Program. The man who gave up whatever prospects he had in the New World, returning to Calcutta, jobless, alone, uncertain about everything but his confidence to write poems. Sunil—the man who fell in love with a French girl named Margarite, whom he could never forget. She was the girl who made him fall in love with France. Paris is the city he frequented most of all. Was it a love for Paris? Was it the search for Margarite—to find her once more?
Now, when I look back at those mornings and afternoons of the orange-coloured sun, first occasional thunderstorms, and blue-coloured rain, I find myself fortunate, I discover Sunil as if he is talking to me.
Many of his friends by then were long gone by, but his loneliness was never apparent when he wrote. I now recall one of Hemingway’s lines from The Old Man and The Sea: “Everything about him was old except his eyes, and they were the same colour as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.”
Sunil was undefeated in that sense, and what better way to end than with Sunil’s own words from his work, Dekha Holo Bhalobasa, Bedonay (Love, we meet in Pain).
In Amsterdam, you find Sunil talking with Dutch waitresses. You still find him at Apollinaire’s grave in Pere Lachaise. You find him at the juncture of a remote village in southern France named Poertiers, standing alone, searching for his French lover, Margarite. You find him in Rome, Istanbul, Chicago, New York, and in our very own Santhal Parganas.
He has mixed moonlight in the Sunset by the river in darkness. He who coloured the grey and brought Spring-like lightning. He, who walked through the rain-washed Thonthoniya Kali Temple and reached the steps of heaven, who with our dance awake the midnight and laughed aloud …, He who shouted, “How wonderful it is to live.”
Sunil taught the budding writers to dream: “Keep writing. Edit ruthlessly and cut everything unnecessary. Think a hundred times about the use of each word. Please think of the characters and write when you hear them whispering. Let whatever happens in your life happen—never stop writing. If you are disciplined, the words will be yours. Words will let you go out into the world; the more you travel, the more you write.”
Sunil was never spiritual and never believed in hell or heaven; he donated his mortal body by a will to Medical College, but his son Souvik, coming from Boston, annulled the decision and burnt the remains, indeed much against the chagrin of the dead Sunil and his wife, Swati.
Known for his secular, open-minded views, he always spoke out against religious bigotry, and his pen was razor-sharp in condemning the 1992 riots. Sunil Gangopadhyay was the foremost of Bengal’s angry but romantic young poets in the second half of the twentieth century. Throughout his writing life, he wrote a continuous sequence of love poems addressed to a mythical woman named Neera. These poems became the mantra of two generations of young women and men. From ardent, sexually charged verses of early infatuation, through the demanding and sensual rhythms of a full-blown relationship to the mellowing middle-aged memories of romance, the Neera poems are a pulsating testimony to the cycle of passion, desire, and, inevitably, unrequited longing.
Known for his secular, open-minded views, he always spoke out against religious bigotry, and his pen was razor-sharp in condemning the 1992 riots.
Taslima Nasrin, etc, have tried to abuse Sunil. The mudslinging has not touched Sunil but rather vilified Taslima. Sunil knows no birth or death.
Sunil Gangopadhyay was the foremost of Bengal’s angry but romantic young poets in the second half of the twentieth century. Throughout his writing life, he wrote a continuous sequence of love poems addressed to a mythical woman named Neera. These poems became the mantra of two generations of young women and men. From ardent, sexually charged verses of early infatuation, through the demanding and sensual rhythms of a full-blown relationship to the mellowing middle-aged memories of romance, the Neera poems are a pulsating testimony to the cycle of passion, desire, and, inevitably, unrequited longing.
Neera, Don’t Get Lost is an epic poem by Sunil. I urge you all to read it.
At the end of the day
By Sunil Gangopadhyay
"Yamuna, take my hand; I will go to heaven.
Come, put face to face, eye to eye, body to body
Pure like a new leaf, come.
Heaven is not far away as spring migrates from the North Sea
Kalasvara flies, the heat of winter from the arms
Such as are indebted to the other chest; Yamuna, take my hand,
I will go to heaven.
My sojourn ends today, such a sweet parting
People don't know anymore. Yamuna is my companion-thousands of handkerchiefs
fly to heaven; Yamuna, I am the closest neighbor to you
Let's do it, are you not the proverbial tears of Swati Nakshatra?
Are you not left with the scent of lemon leaves astrological night?
Are you not faint incense? you are nobody
You are oblivion, you are the voiced, colorful woman, you are the woman with breasts and thighs,
You sleep on the journey, thirsting for the love associated with all the hearts
Women believe in the eyes, in the hair, in the dust of the nails
Woman in every molecule, woman within woman, beautiful in emptiness,
You are the mockery of Gayatri broken Manisha, you are youth
Every poet's naira, all the world's raging greed
The waves of the river touch your sweetness in mistakes and sleep
Thou kissest the sinner, so opens the door Heaven's watchman.
Are you like this? You are nobody?
You are only my Yamuna.
Hold hands, let's dance with chordal steps, shameless life
Visualise the narrative in space, Hold Hands.
I have got the greatest sorrow in the world, in unbelief.
I'm a murderer, I'm a fraud in the underworld, I'm a juggler.
On the run, in debt to the butcher shop, a spy in disguise breaks the festival.
Yet in hesitation, I did not forget the path of heaven, such as the former homeland.
You don't know anything, not love, not low heaven, not know good.
You are the river of youth, the stream of oblivion, the reward of the afternoon……
Come on Khuki, let's run around in the garden of heaven today."
(Tripurainfo)