Bengal Colonial City Through The Literature of Bengal Modernist Poetry Jibun Ananda Das   

From the poetry of the early age [Charyapada app. 10th A. D ] to the modern era (20th century-present), Bengali poetry underwent a vast chronological evolution. In this changing pattern of literature, Jibanananda das played a significant role to propel the stream of modernism in Bengal poetry. Though considered as a poet of “Ruposhi Banglar Kobi”, most of his works reflect the urban environment and experience. His works illustrate real experience of urban life accompanied by surreal feelings of human mind diverted the conventional stream of romance based literature practice into modern Bengali poem. This term paper aims to analyze his literature practice for exploring the context and subject matter of his writing to construct a visualization of Bengal colonial city experience.

Keywords: Bengal colonial city, Literature, city experience, modernist poet.

Jibanananda Das (17 February 1899 – 22 October 1954) was a Bengali poet, writer, novelist, and essayist. Dimly recognized during his lifetime, today Das is acknowledged as the premier poet of the post-Tagore era in India and Bangladesh. Jibanananda scholars Seely, Clinton (1990) has termed Jibanananda Das as "Bengal's most cherished poet since Rabindranath Tagore". About his poetic works, Sengupta & Dutta summarized that, ‘He is considered one of the precursors who introduced modernist poetry to Bengali Literature, at a period when it was influenced by Romantic poetry. During his lifetime he published only 269 poems in different journals and magazines, of which 162 were collected in seven an were theologies. . . ’(Sengupta & Dutta 2016, p06 ) Jibanananda remained solely a poet who occasionally wrote literary articles, mostly on request. Only after his death a huge number of novels and short-stories were discovered. Towards the latter half of the twentieth century, the poetry of Jibanananda has become the defining essence of modernism in twentieth-century Bengali poetry. Colonial city experience through his literature Thematically, Jibanananda's literature are largely autobiographical. His own time constitutes the perspective. While in poetry he subjugated his own life, allowed it to be brought into his fiction. About his literature inspiration, Swarup Dey stated that, ‘He delineates the artistic conscience of his soul self which is enlightened by his lively spirit, movable by his mind and by his emotions.

Every poem of this composition is packed with a fine sensation of life-based on various word pictures. ’ ( Dey,p02,2015)Jibanananda Das started his teaching career as a tutor in English department of City College, Calcutta. From that lonely city life perspective, he wrote a poem titled “Nilima” and announced his entrance in Bengali literature in 1926. This poem is based on colonial city Calcutta, where he passed most of his adulthood. He compared the Calcutta city with a prison city which is filled with grey smoke. Houses seemed like a charcoal pit, smoke was an essential part of the city. He recalled the concrete of buildings with the hot sand of the desert, people were running, jostling without knowing their destination, they were obsolescent human being. In this poem, he expressed his desire to escape from this smoke-filled prison city to nilima, a distant place where he wants to merge with the bright blue cloudless sky. He inscribed it, “ nissohay nogorir karagar prachiler pare!---- udbeliche hetha garo dhumrer kundoli ugro chullibohni hetha onibar uthiteche joli, …Ogonon jatriker pran Khuje more onibar pay-nako pather sondhan“( Nilima, Das Jibanananda, 1927, p05-06)In childhood, Jibanananda witnessed a peaceful world, where people conveyed truth, beauty and the touch of humanity. He passed his adulthood at Barisal city for a certain time, his compassionate relationship with nature grew during that period. But it didn’t affect him to frequent use of urban example in his poem.

When he returned to Calcutta he portrayed his perception of cities both physical and moral underpinning through his literature. Though the emergence of motorcars, railways, trams facilitated the urban industrialization. He couldn’t celebrate it, rather he was suspicious about the velocity, it bought to peaceful urban life. This unexpected growth of city life seems unwanted and lifeless to him. In his poem “ Unnissho choutrisher ( 1934 )” he wanted to celebrate a breathing city enriched with natural elements, rather than this jostling and hustling urban gloomy city. he wrote the verse : “ ekta motorcar er path – motorcar sob somoy ie amar kache khotkar moto mone hoyeche, ondhokarer moto. ami oto taratari kothaou jete chai na ; amar jiban ja chay sekhane amar hete hete pouchabar somoy ache, pouche onekkhon bose opekkha korbar obosor ache … ” (Das Jibanananda,1954 cited in Syed mannan, 1994,p467)Jibanananda passed his whole personal life in torment, he fought with poverty and suffered misery throughout his life. Urban city experience was never a peaceful experience for him. While analyzing his all famous works like “ Hajar bochor dhore”, “ Buno has“, “Banglar rup ami dekhiyachi “, “Bonolota sen“ it is observed that he tried to escape from the harsh reality by memorizing the nature of beautiful rural Bangla. His composition not only delineates the natural images but also he gives keen inquisitiveness towards the image of sharp realism. Later period of his life he witnessed the horrible Second World War, the partition of India, the great famine where he felt that not only his life but humanity is losing the light of hope gently. But as a man beyond his time, space and context, he felt that the greater world’s dream was also collapsing with time, he is just a bearer and a played a part of this torment. He wrote, ‘ manusher sovvotar morme klanti ase / boro boro nogorir buk vora betha ‘ (Das Jibanananda, 1948a cited in shahadzzaman, 2017,p215)“kothay somaj,orthoniti?-shorgogami siri?Venge giye payer niche rokto nodir moto… “(Das Jibanananda, 1950 cited in shahadzzaman, 2017,p216)

A fundamental question about world progress, development, indiscriminant society, economic freedom was haunting him. Are these all just tools for absorption of power for proletariats? When he looked back to history, he didn’t find any significant chapter to answer his inquiry --- “ manushera bar bar prithibir ayute jonmeche;nobo nobo itihas soikote vireche;tobuo kothao sei onirbochoniyoshopner sofolota nabinota shuvro manobikotar vor?” (Das Jibanananda, somoyer kache 1952 cited in amitananda, 2006, p97)From this agony he wrote from frustration “prithibir somosto rup omey timir mritodeher durgondher moto …”(Das Jibanananda, 1948b cited in shahadzzaman, 2017,p217)Before his tragic death on 1954 by tramcars, he was deeply concerned with Poverty, scarcity of jobs, corruption which were the common phenomenon of that period. Das in his poem “Odvut adhar ek, (1954)” laments how the cruel and the heartless have come to assume power, while the compassionate and the virtuous face prosecution:“Odvut adhar ek esheche e-prithibite aj,jara ondho sobcheye beshi aj cokhe dekhe tara;jader hridoye kono prem nei-priti nei,korunar aloron neiPrithibi ochol aj tader suporamorsho chara …”(Das Jibanananda,1954 cited in Syed mannan, 1994,p602)

In his novel Suthirtho (no date )he remarked these people as inhuman while indicating the rural workers as the true human– “manush, mane jara maron-ostro, shell toiri korte pare? Tar cheye zara talpatar bag toiri korte pare tara beshi manush … babui der sathe manusher kono mil nei – ki kore sthirota pabe manush ”It is clearly visible that Jibanananda relies largely on imagistic and symbolical means to express in his poems a complexity that grapples with the subjective realities of modern urban life. He was unhappy with the conditions of modern living, was hopelessly impecunious and often expresses a deeply tragic sensibility. From this agonizing experience, he developed a deep moral understanding of city life, for that reason he can portray successfully distressed humanity as well as the depression, frustration, and loneliness of modern urban life in his poems.

The hopelessness and discord of material exploitation, overpopulation, and poverty, the poet’s awareness of an eternal beauty and Love struggle to penetrate the veil of appearances, questioning, probing and finding significance in unlikely circumstances. Introspection is also an important characteristic of his poetic genius. His poems merge a concern for the present and a sense of history. Though Jibanananda shared deep feelings for nature, eloquently describing the beauty of rural Bengal in various poems and earning the appellation of Rupasi Banglar Kavi (Poet of Beautiful Bengal). Many critics believe that his modernism, evoking almost all the suggested elements of the phenomenon, remains transcended to date, despite the emergence of many notable poets during the last 50 years. His success as a modern Bengali poet may be attributed to the facts that Jibanananda Das in his poetry not only portrayed the tract of the slowly evolving 20th-century modern mind and city experience but also reflects the sensitivity and reactiveness, full of anxiety and tension, that he invented through his own diction, rhythm, and vocabulary, with an unmistakably indigenous rooting and colonial city experience.