Ash by Jayanta Mahapatra
The substance that stirs in my palm
could well be a dead man; no need
to show surprise at the dizzy acts of wind.
My old father sitting uncertainly three feet away
is the slow cloud against the sky:
so my heart’s beating makes of me a survivor
over here where the sun quietly sets.
The ways of freeing myself:
the glittering flowers, the immensity of rain for example,
which were limited to promises once
have had the lie to themselves. And the wind,
that had made simple revelation in the leaves,
plays upon the ascetic-faced vision of waters;
and without thinking
something makes me keep close to the walls
as though I was afraid of that justice in the shadows.
Now the world passes into my eye:
the birds flutter toward rest around the tree,
the clock jerks each memory towards
the present to become a past, floating away
like ash, over the bank.
My own stirrings like the wind’s
keep hoping for the solace that would be me
in my father’s eyes
to pour the good years back on my;
the dead man who licks my palms
is more likely to encourage my dark intolerance
rather than turn me
toward some strangely solemn charade:
the dumb order of the myth
lined up in the life-field,
the unconcerned wind perhaps truer than the rest,
rustling the empty, bodiless grains.
What substance is it and whose substance is that he is referring to? The dead
man with dead thought and idea? Or, the symbolic substance, elemental thing
taking him to delve deep? The promises of the flowers and of the rains he has
nothing to do with, but the ashes.
What is he doing with bhashma, Hindu bhashma used during the worship,
rubbed on the palm and with water smeared over the forehead as the three lines
with a round spot in the middle? Is Mahapatra like the Eliot of The Waste Land
doing the puja-havana and chanting the shantih mantras for purification and
peace? Or, is he taking a note of mass remaining as matter? How the residues of
meaning, the remnants of thought and idea? The ash is the end of the story,
George Herbert too refers to the burning of the world as coal for virtue to be
purged out.
Like a Hindu ascetic, pundita, Mahapatra takes up bhashma, ash to deal with
and delve deep into to dwell upon and deliberate it. There is something of the
last wish of the mother as described in Dawn at Puri, but we do not know if that
is real or just an imagination as because he is an Odia Christian. Similar is the
aspiration here relating to his old father as his great grandfathers were converts
during the great famine or drought time.
And what is ash but clay mixed with soil, good earth and from the same clay
things are made. With a handful of ash on the palm, he to show the magic, but
the wind playing with in its way. The substance in his palm may be ash or the
dead man as ashes or a part of that, how to say that? Ashes are ashes, may be of
the body or the leaves and logs which but one can mark in the burning hearths
or earthen ovens or one may in the havana done for with handful dry twigs,
milk, ghee, incense sticks and so on. When he refers to the dizzy acts of the
wind, we get remembered of the pyre burning in Dawn at Puri on the sea beach.
While with the ash going to worship or after the havana, lifting a bit over the
palm with water, the mind gets lifted to the playful acts of the dizzy wind. He
thinks of his old father sitting uncertainly three feet away just like the slow
cloud drifting against the sky. The pyre, ash, body, fire, cremation, heat, water
and cooling. Dry leaves or logs’ ashes too the same ashes as those of the bodies
cremated with logs. But it is pulsation, the beating of the heart, the feeling of the
pulse which but keeps him alive as a remnant or descendant and he finds
himself just as a lone survivor here under such a sky where the sun runs as per
its course, rising and finally setting quietly.
But how to free himself? Keep him tension-free? How to offload the things is
the question? How to dislodge it all taking place in his heart, going over the
mind? Sensations felt in the heart, but the impressions passing over the screen
of the mind. For the time being, the flowers as the things of joy and happiness,
the rains cleansing it all, giving a fresh look after the showers, take us by their
spells, the flowers of light, fancy and imagination, so dreamy, so lovely to look
at, the showers cleaning and clearing it. But the wind instilling hope in the
leaves plays upon the ascetic-faced visions of the water and he unmindful of
stands close to the wall fearing justice from the shadows.
Chinta chita ke saman hain, cares are like the cremation pyre, it is true as
because it cautions us against repenting, lamenting more, so be mournful or to
be thoughtful about. This is but one side while on the other the chita opines too,
it is not the bad place, but the sacred place too as because the last rites are done
here and it is also the place of sadhna from where one attains it siddhi.
But with the shift in thought and idea, memory and reflection, he resumes to the
existential talk. The world passes into his eye, the birds flutter toward rest
around the tree, the clock jerks each memory towards, the present becoming
past, floating away like ash on the bank. Here the memories are like the burning
and extinguishing pyres of Puri. Such a scene one sees it while passing through
the burning ghats or banks and the playful winds making them fly a bit.
The lines are superb, containing extraordinary expression, poetic thought and
idea:
Now the world passes into my eye:
the birds flutter toward rest around the tree,
the clock jerks each memory towards
the present to become a past, floating away
like ash, over the bank.
His stirrings take him to the dreams shown by his father and he tries to dream
through his eyes with his blessing showered upon him:
My own stirrings like the wind’s
keep hoping for the solace that would be me
in my father’s eyes
to pour the good years back on my;
But can the good years be brought back? Can the times spent with benediction?
A father’s son he will definitely look into his eyes, but the world rests on hope
is also a reality never to be negated.
The dead cannot be resurrected. Let bygone be bygone, is the thing. Though
heredity and lineage take him to, but the older tales cannot bolster it all.
Something one learns from his father and something one dislodges it in time.
Everything cannot be appreciated. The generation gap, how to bridge it?
the dead man who licks my palms
is more likely to encourage my dark intolerance
rather than turn me
toward some strangely solemn charade:
What it is consequent upon is the dumb order of the myth lined up in the life-
field and the unconcerned wind keeps rustling it the bodiless grains.
the dumb order of the myth
lined up in the life-field,
the unconcerned wind perhaps truer than the rest,
rustling the empty, bodiless grains
It is a specialty of Jayanta Mahapatra that one cannot be sure of the turns and
twists of his poetry as because the things keep swapping places and positions
and this is also the crux of our life-matter. The elemental things we know them
not, which is from where, which is what and what is which?
Ash is as such, the poetical tale of it. When swept away rains, they are not
ashes, but clay. What it cools the ashes, but water.
