REVIEW : TWO-WAY MIRROR

TWO-WAY MIRROR: POEMS AND TRANSLATIONS OF B.S.M. MURTY

Two-Way Mirror
Author: B.S.M. Murty
Publisher: Vagishwari Prakashan
2020

The poem is, for some, what we need to hear—but don’t want to hear.

The poem pours morals all over us.

But forgive me. As a critic, I’ve already ruined everything, defining morals as some vague, liquid, cure-all which we don’t want.

This poem by B.S.M. Murty, the third poem in his just published, elegant book, Two Way Mirror, demonstrates how not to ruin everything:

    Forgiveness

    Forgiveness is a blessing
    A divine Benediction
    That only comes to a heart
    Cleansed by true Repentance

    True Forgiveness comes
    Not from incontrite solicitation
    But from earning it the hard way
    Through sustained Repentance

    It will only enter into a heart
    Purified by overflowing Lovingkindness

The poem is the best device for admonishment and punishment—it comes from the wise, but we receive it alone, and anonymously, so our pride is intact; the punishment costs little, and the admonishment is over in a few moments, and, far from the clutter and confusion and ego of life, it gives us a simple truth.

As a critic, we pass over “Forgiveness” in silence; “Forgiveness” has no image, no rhyme; we cannot say anything about it. Why should we? To the poet, to the readers, and to the truth of the poem, we would only look like a fool.

There are some poems which cannot be reviewed.

Most poets don’t dare admonish the reader.

Here’s what most ingratiating poets do. You all know them. They say: Let me flatter the reader and tell them what they want to hear: that I am a rogue, exactly like them; oh and here’s a story for them anyone might tell at night after a few drinks. You’ve read countless poems like this, and if read aloud in public, this kind of poem always gets a burst of relieved laughter and applause.

B.S.M Murty is not such a poet.

B.S.M Murty is a student of Edgar Allan Poe.

Beauty—impersonal beauty—is the flip side of Murty’s truth which does not flatter.

This is also from Two-Way Mirror. They are the first lines we meet in the book:

    You cannot have the aura alone.
    A bright clear smile must be
    On a soft-swaying anemone
    In the heart of a darkening sea.

These lines, from “The Aura,” are more beautiful than what most poets write—you know these poets, the poets who never tell a truth or a moral, but laugh and confuse us, or, like those Instagram flatterers, say: if there is a truth, it is only you, reader, and only what you feel.

You will never get easy advice from B.S.M. Murty.

In our deep pride, we would turn away, If someone, in person, were to tell us to be a better person.

So the reader hopes the poem will be the medium to anonymously and delicately impart what he or she will otherwise be too proud to hear.

And if there is beauty also, we have two reasons to celebrate.

We are happy to report that this double splendor is accessible in the work of B.S.M. Murty.

But now, in “The Pitcher,” we have a third type of poem. Once the poet establishes himself in the first two—moral poetry and poetry which is beautiful—the muse may grant him a completely different kind of poem, which uses a voice, seeking answers among his fellows:

    I am an earthen pitcher
    Lying in a pitcher-maker’s backyard.
    As I look around, I find many pitchers
    Lying around me, some of them
    Have their necks broken.
    Others appear misshapen.
    Hardly any are perfect in shape.

    I get worried about myself:
    Am I all well made?
    Free from all defects?
    Round and sound in shape?
    How can I see myself?
    They are all looking at me?
    Am I in good shape?
    Is nothing wrong with me?
    How do I know?
    Who can tell me?
    Only the pitcher maker perhaps.

In the social arena, among his peers, the wise poet loses confidence, asking a host of questions.

But the wisdom is not absent, as we see in the sly modesty of the last line: “Only the pitcher maker perhaps.”

Questions do not indicate a lack of wisdom; questioning is the default setting of any gathering; no one can read minds; no one, no matter how wise, is not given to wondering (“How can I see myself”). The good individual and the healthy society are full of questions.

And so B.S.M. Murty, the wise poet, triumphs in the third type of poem.

How many types of poems are there?

We can’t forget the ‘immersion’ poem, which transports the reader to a familiar, yet strange place, enfolding one in the atmosphere of a reality one can taste—and the mere words of the poet have put you there.

We find examples of this kind of poetry in Two-Way Mirror, as well:

    The Jetty

    Dusk sat
    At the dark stairs of death.
    The jetty lay still
    In the black tranquility.
    The sound of wing-flap
    Amid the leaves unquivering
    Three dogs dancing blackly
    Vanishing and reappearing
    Unbarking.

    The path from the Temple
    Led it to the Pavilion of Death
    Where a ray of prayer
    Lay prostrate begging for
    Love and life.
    Beneath the porch
    Behind the library
    Once upon a time not so dark
    In the harsh glare
    Of a 100 watt electric bulb
    It was torn
    To be torn again
    And again ad infinitum.

“The Jetty” takes the reader into the abyss pleasantly. Anything a reviewer might say about “The Jetty’s” “black tranquility” and “sound of wing-flap” would not do this poem justice; this reader can only stand in silence before this higher order of poetry.

We get many kinds of poems in Two-Way Mirror, including happy hymns to the gods, and this poem, whose philosophy is so white-hot, pure, and rare, we wonder whether this may not be the burning flame in the mind of the poet which creates all his poems:

    ‘Isnotness’

    My presence is in my absence;
    In my being, my cessation.
    I am because I am not.
    I am not because I am.
    All you know, you don’t know.
    You only see what you don’t see,
    Hear what is not audible,
    Touch what is ephemeral,
    Smell only the deja vu.

    I am untruth
    The whole untruth,
    And nothing but the untruth.

    Yes, I am all, I’m everything.
    Because I am nothing at all.

    Whoever says there is no God
    Knows not, because God Is;
    Because his ‘isnotness’
    Is impossible to prove,
    Because what you don’t see
    Or believe, also Is.

    The invisible
    The inaudible
    The untouchable
    Is the whole reality.

This poem almost scorches us with its philosophy; we shut the door on its boiler room heat.

But there are many rooms in Two-Way Mirror.  Some are loud and small; some are wide and airy.

Have I forgotten to tell you there are also first-person poems in which the poet experiences life in hope and whimsy?

In “Ganapati,” the poet has anguishing writer’s block—and the elephant deity comes to his rescue, surprising him by stroking the poet’s back with his trunk.

And there are poems where wisdom is applied to contemporary social matters.

    Technology today
    Is like an all-enveloping smog
    Creating a choking pollution
    That it seeks to wipe out
    But which is slowly
    Strangling itself.

We get illusions of the common folk, and hints of Marxism.

B.S.M. Murty moves from philosophical priest, to kindly father, to humble poet, to religious devotee, to political priest, surprisingly quickly.

We don’t find rancor and irritation in Two-Way Mirror. We don’t say this to praise Murty for being nice.  Some of the greatest poets were full of hate. The major poets know all the emotions, and put every emotion with a mood and every mood with a thought and every thought with a poem.

Two-Way Mirror is that unusual book where the author (in fulfilling the prophecy of the title of his book) is looking at you as you look at him.

As soon as you think he is one thing, he is another.  You think you see him, but you do not.

There is no escape from B.S.M Murty.

Aesthetically, this is a good thing, even if it may cause a bit of social discomfort.

Murty often comes across as a kindly professor, but this is not even close to all that he is.

In “Patriotism On Sleeves!” he sings the praises of the salt of the earth of India, but before that, he puts things in perspective:

    Is a Cinema Hall—nowadays in Multiplexes—
    the fittest place to make it mandatory
    for the big-money viewers to stand up
    in respect as the National Anthem
    plays on for fifty four seconds
    before the film show begins?
    (The film will have plenty of noisy
    hip-swinging, lovey-doveying,
    and comical fighting to absurdity.)
    Will that be OK there?

    Yes—why not, because all
    the nouveau riche in our society,
    spending their thousands over tickets
    for their family & friends,
    assemble there only
    to while away their time
    munching vigorously
    on peppered popcorns
    or swilling with slurps
    their cans of Coke—
    they are the people enjoying fruits
    of their ill-begotten wealth,
    living off the misery and poverty
    of the common people

Perspective, perspective.  Murty understands perspective. He has prepared the ground—and now when he praises the patriotism of the poor, wearing patriotism “on their sleeves,” even as India’s poor do not have “sleeves” because they can’t afford them, well now you’ve got a poem.

In finding things we like, we are afraid we will end up quoting the whole book.

If you want love poetry, there are few love poems as passionate as the following:

    My Old Love

    I took her in my arms, my old Love
    Now withered and shriveled
    Her bones brittle, coming unstuck
    Her spine bent with decrepitude
    Scarcely breathing, almost senseless
    Dead in my arms? I wondered awhile
    And put my ear on her once-charming
    Unheaving, perspiring bosom

    It felt snowy cold and motionless
    She had left me alas, alone and forlorn
    I fell into a swoon. She was gone.
    Was she to be wrapped in a shroud
    Laid down into a wooden coffin
    Down into a grave to be dug

    All my ocular nerves were awash with tears
    Ringing with a melancholy music
    The final moment of bodily separation was come
    She had to be buried into earth
    ‘Dust thou art, to dust returnest’
    Said the poet singing his psalm

    But my soul cried, she was a mummy
    Let her remain a mummy

    Rather than bury her to be eaten by worms
    Keep her by your bedside, on a hallowed shelf

    Drape her in her bridal clothes
    And let her be a memento mori
    For she will then outlive you
    Lying on that shelf of eternal memory
    To be remembered even while
    You are forgotten.

This harrowing song of self-effacement smashes love even as it builds it; it is hyper-Romanticism before Romanticism is even born.

“My Old Love” is more melancholy than even the masterpieces of medieval German melancholy.

Poems like this guarantee B.S.M. Murty’s immortality.

Two-Way Mirror may also be seen as a deck of prophetic playing cards—not prophecy, exactly; truths which are true forever; look at this startling poem:

    The Mask

    Who are these people
    Who surround me
    At this late hour
    With their faces masked

    In weird grimaces
    Ogling with green, glinting eyes
    Their bat-ears protruding wide
    Swaddled under their dark cloaks

    In their hairy nakedness
    I seem to know them
    Each one of them
    At one point of time

    Beyond the present
    In the labyrinths of the past
    I have often seen them
    Lurking in dark alleys

    Peering into half-shut windows
    Mumbling cabbalistic syllables
    Scratching their pubes
    Spitting out venom

    Singed by their own flames
    Of pride, envy and hatred
    Burning to ashes
    To nothing.

“The Mask” glows with the metallurgic fury of Dante.

And look at this poem.

We know there are millions of sports metaphors.

Here’s the best one, perhaps; from Murty’s “The Football; a humbling observation which really does sum up life:

    Football is a game
    Where the football
    Runs always faster
    Than the footballer […]

Two-Way Mirror finishes with this stanza, as the plain-speaking, melancholy, lynx-eyed, theme rings its knell.

The grateful, wise, but obedient, poet bids us adieu:

    […]

    You’re my will-power.
    The more you stay with me
    The more power I’ll have
    To fight the darkening despair
    Which keeps surrounding
    Me terribly.

The humane, selfless, and gracious professor returns, at page 100, giving us a long (65 pages) encore performance—notable Hindi poems translated into English.

The translations have the same high quality as Murty’s poems, and feature a sensual masterpiece by Suryakant Tripathi (“The Joohi Bud”); the lovely “Seadusk” by Nalin Vilochan Sharma; “The Boatman” and “The Etcher,” revealing the singular genius of, Ram Gopal Sharma; political poems by Dharmveer Bharati and Ramdhari Singh Dinkar; and many poems by Kedarnath Singh, evoking his uncanny wisdom—the spookiness of simplicity, symbolic and uncanny, using material from simple nature, including the entrancing “Tiger Poems;” translations by Murty of nine poets in all.

The notes which follow the translations are informative and interesting.

Two-Way Mirror by B.S.M. Murty is a wise, holy—and literary—treasure.

                                                    Thomas Graves
                                                     Editor, Blog Scarriet
                                                     Professor, Lesley University, cambridge, MA (US)
               



~~~

Salem, MA 6/19/20

The book is available on Amazon.in (also soon in US by arrangement). Or contact : bsmmurty.blogspot.com. Mob. 7752922938 / 7985017549 

Remembering

Dr Sujit Mukherji

[1930-2003]

It was in 1958. I was in M.A. Previous. The PG English Dept was in Darbhanga House overlooking river Ganga. A tall, lanky newly-appointed lecturer, with eyes mostly glued to the lectern, was trying his best to impress us with his scholarship on  Sterne’s Tristram Shandy. Though much of that wisecracking exposition of the discursive and bizarre novelist tended to drift over our heads. But outside the classroom, Sujit Mukherji (SM in our timetable) was a familiar figure in the campus, the most genial friend of his students, an avid cricketer, and the wittiest, the most jovial figure among teachers in the campus. As I have recalled later here, I had already met him once at the National Defence Academy (NDA), Khadagwasla, Pune, and he was very genial towards me, in particular, for that reason.

Only a couple of weeks back, we had his 17^th death anniversary. I had in my computer files a memorable obituary tribute by Dr Sachidanand Mohanty, then Professor of English in University of Hyderabad, an excerpt from which I quote below, adding some reminiscences of my own at the end. Dr Mohanty’s tribute was originally published in the Literary Review of the Hindu on Feb 2, 2003, soon after SM’s demise in Hyderabad where he had finally settled down, after serving a long stint with the publishers, Orient Longman. Dr Mohanty wrote in his tribute:

“Dr. Sujit Mukherjee passed away in his sleep at his Rukmini Devi Colony, Annexe House, Secunderabad, on January 14, 2003. It was the auspicious Sankranti day. According to believers, "The gates of Heaven open on this day to welcome the truly blessed."

“And blessed certainly he was! All those who knew Sujit Mukherjee would testify to his qualities of the head and the heart. A man who cherished high scholarly ideals but sought no position or worldly success, he endeared himself to a whole generation of students, scholars and admirers. Recalls Tutun Mukherjee, Professor of English at Osmania University, “You always came under the spell of his care, concern and scholarship. He was a wonderful human being, full of wit, humour and laughter. To me he was an elder brother, friend and advisor." This would be a refrain with many who visited Sujit-da and his equally distinguished spouse Professor Meenakshi Mukherjee at their SFS flat at Hauz Khas, New Delhi. Many of us received their unbounded love during our trips to the capital. Meenakshi-di then taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

“Sujit Mukherjee was a "Probashi Bangali", who came from an illustrious family in Patna. His father Bhupati Mukhopadhyaya was a Professor of Economics and his mother Amala Devi was a woman of strong ideals. Active in social work, she started many institutions for widows. Sujit-da had four brothers and one sister who excelled in varied professions and made up a well-knit family. Today they are all gone.

“Sujit Mukherjee had his early education at St. Xaviers School, Patna and Patna College. Years later in a contribution to an excellent volume devoted to a profile of great educational institutions of India, edited by historian Mushirul Hassan, Sujit-da recalled that there were three tennis courts by the river and contemporaries included famous personalities like the current External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha.

“Mukherjee obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, where he worked on his dissertation: "A Passage to America" (1963). It is about the rise and fall of the Tagore reputation in the United States. By this time he was married. How did it happen, I asked Meenakshi Mukherjee. "Well, I was his student", she recalled, "It was one of those occupational hazards, you know!" Together they travelled to many towns and cities and examined newspaper archives and microfilms. Robert Miller, of the famous Cycle of American Literature fame, was his senior course instructor and thesis supervisor. In the1960s this was decidedly pioneering and required courage of a certain kind that bordered on the foolhardy. In 1964 he and D.V.K. Raghavacharyulu brought out a volume together on Indian responses to American Literature, a path-breaking work.

“Although they had offers from the U.S., the couple decided to return to India. "There was no question then", recalls Meenakshi-di; "He wanted to go out of Patna and didn't want to work abroad. The Poona University appointment came in 1966." Professor S. Nagarajan, the acclaimed Shakespeare scholar had taken charge of the Department and Sujit-da plunged whole-heartedly into teaching from 1966 to 1970. While he taught at the University, she joined the local Ferguson College. Two daughters, Rukmini and Rohini added to their happiness.

“Why did Sujit-da quit teaching? "Well," reminiscences Meenakshi Mukherjee, "he found that the syllabus was largely irrelevant, while the proficiency of most students in the language was rather poor. An offer came from Orient Longman and with this Sujit-da entered another significant phase of his career, namely, publishing. He joined as a publisher, became the Chief Publisher, then joined the Board of Directors of Orient Longman. And after retirement he served as a consultant." In 1971 a post was created in the North, and the couple moved to Delhi. Meenakshi-di joined Lady Sriram College, and in 1979 she moved to the University of Hyderabad, English Department. Fortunately, the Central office of Orient Longman too shifted around this time to the Deccan.

“At Orient Longman, Sujit-da oversaw practically the whole of the publishing programme, although clearly his forte was translation, literature and culture….He started an in-house newsletter, called the OWL." Incidentally, the Mukherjee drawing room at Hyderabad also boasts a lovely collection of owls, as visitors would notice.

“As a publisher, Sujit-da pioneered the translation series, the "Sangam Books" in the1970s, his own interest going back to the 1950s when he translated Rabindranath, published in Visva Bharati Patrika. A translation of Bengali poet Nirendranath Chakrabarty called Naked King and Other Poems followed. He issued a paperback translation of Iravati Karve's Yuganta, which was a huge success. His Translation as Discovery (1981), was a landmark in the field and Meenakshi-di recalled that he had almost finished Translation as Recovery at the time of his passing.

“The corpus of academic and other works by Sujit Mukherjee who himself was a fulltime publisher is truly remarkable. Besides the titles mentioned before, there are numerous others: The Romance of Indian Cricket, (1968); Towards a Literary History of India, IIAS (1975); Forster and Further, (1978); Translation as Discovery and Other Essays,    (1981); Some Positions on a Short History of India, CIIL (1981); The Book of Yudhistir, by Buddhadev Bose, translated by Sujit Mukherjee, Sangam Books (1986); A Dictionary of Indian Literature, (1991); Autobiography of an Unknown Cricketer (1996); Indian Essays on American Literature, Co-edited with K.Raghavacharyulu,     (1996); An Indian Cricket Century, edited with Ramchandra Guha, (2002).

“Cricket too was a passion. Rukmini recalls her father playing cricket in Patna in his long-sleeve shirts. "Tennis, swimming, travel and his love for the outdoor are what we remember the most about father", she said. He played for the Ranji Trophy. At Patna, he was a legend. In his Autobiography of an Unknown Cricketer, he profiled the role played by small towns of India.

“In an obituary note emailed from Australia, the distinguished Sri Lankan couple Brendon and Yasmine Gooneratne recalled that among their acquaintances, Sujit Mukherjee stood out by the qualities of his head and heart. Yasmine said that it was her singular good fortune to meet the ideal literary editor. Today as I look nostalgically back at the letter I received way back in 1982, I think of the myriad dimensions of this extraordinary personality that was Sujit Mukherjee: his razor-sharp intelligence, imaginative apprehension of literature, balanced assessment of complex issues, his support for projects pioneering in character... I also think of his joie de vivre, his impatience with claptrap and pretentious behaviour, his sense of humility and total absence of academic arrogance, his encouragement to the younger generation and spirit of consideration — qualities rare in today's academic and publishing world.”

Meenakshi (Mrs Mukherji) was one-year my senior. After teaching us only for a few months, SM went to Pensylvania for his Ph D, and soon thereafter, in December, 1959, I too joined my lectureship at Munger. In his recently published autobiography Relentless , Yashwant Sinha, also my friend at Patna University in those halcyon days, writes in the early pages of his book about an interesting interlude regarding his brief unsuccessful love affair with Meenakshi and, soon thereafter, as an ironical denouement, his receiving the embarrassing invite for the latter’s marriage with SM. Though, in retrospect, it appears, God often disposes in His superior wisdom, as the Mukherjis, in time, proved to be the most eminent scholarly couple Indian English academia ever had.

I now recall an earlier meeting in December, 1955, with SM at the NDA, near Pune, where I had gone to attend the passing out parade of my friend J K Benipuri, my childhood friend, and second son of the famous Hindi writer, Rambriksha Benipuri. After doing his MA, for a while SM had joined NDA as English Instructor, and was very happy to host a lunch for us there, as we were all from Patna where he belonged. It was a little later that he had joined Patna University as lecturer, and taught us in our MA classes. His marriage with Meenakshi had taken place during that very time; perhaps, in 1959.

I met him and Meenakshi next, years later in the mid-eighties, in their Hauz Khas flat in Delhi, and also in his cabin in Sahitya Academy where he was working as editor of A Dictionary of Indian Literature. Both in his flat and at his Sahitya Academy office, we had a lot of memories to share of the Patna University days, with Meenakshi joining more eloquently in the discussion. In those days, I was editing a research journal CONTOUR, and both Meenakshi and SM were very happy to receive its published numbers. Meenakshi also agreed to be on its Editorial Advisory Board. In his cabin, SM talked to me for quite a while about my father, Acharya Shivapoojan Sahay, and his important contributions to Hindi language and journalism.

In the last phase of his life, the couple went back to Hyderabad, where SM, even after his retirement from Orient Longmans, served that organization as a Consultant Scholar till the end of his life.

I have fond memories of both Meenakshi and Prof. Sujit Mukherji, as eminent scholars of in the field of multi-lingual literary studies and translation. Surfing on the net, I also came across an obituary article on Meenakshi by Sanjukta Das where she writes: “Along with her husband and intellectual collaborator Prof Sujit Mukherjee she brought to the field of translation, academic attention and critical insights on the one hand, while building and consolidating on the other hand a discourse on Indian English Literature… Mukherjee leaves behind a rich legacy for academics and students of literature. Her students, readers and collaborators have the assurance that this legacy is set to grow.”

I pay my homage to the scholarly couple from Patna who have done memorable service to the cause of Indian English studies in India, particularly in the field of inter-language discourse.

Photos : Courtesy Google Images

Special acknowledgement to Dr Mohanty & The Hindu for the obituary excerpt.