Artistic Mind in a Poetic Land

 

Artistic Mind in a Poetic Land

-         thoughts of the new occupant of Raj Bhavan, Darjeeling

Dr. C. V. Ananda Bose

 

When Kalidasa visualised the mighty Himalayas in Kumarasambhavam as: अस्त्युत्तरस्यां दिशि देवतात्मा हिमालयो नाम नगाधिराजः।
पूर्वापरौ तोयनिधी विगाह्य स्थितः पृथिव्या इव मानदण्डः॥ १-१, he meant: on the northern frontier of this country that forms the heartland of Gods, intercalating himself into eastern and western oceans like a measuring stick of earth, there stands the sovereign of snowy mountains renowned as Mt. Himalaya.

Through Kalidasa’s Kumarasambhavam, the world got an insight into the ethereal and metaphysical magnetism of nature’s amazing wonders.

When one sits in the cozy setting of the sylvan backdrop of the Himalayan woods, one’s poetic imagination gets realistically kindled.   

As Shakespeare has written in A Midsummer Night’s Dream:

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,

And as imagination bodes forth,

The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen,

Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing,

A local habitation and a name.

 

We can conjure the sublime beauty of the Himalayas, in Percy Shelley’s famous poem about Mont Blanc:

In the calm darkness of the moonless nights,
In the lone glare of day, the snows descend
Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there
‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep’.  But Darjeeling also reminds one of his karma or duty which is expressed by Robert Frost:

But I have promises to keep,  

And miles to go before I sleep,   

And miles to go, before I sleep.

 

Viewed in this esoteric backdrop, Darjeeling is a confluence of vision and action.  When the conquerors from across the seas discovered the serenity and smoothening effect of the mighty Himalayas, lying embedded in the woods of the enticing Darjeeling, they turned it into a haven of rest and recuperation after the din and blithe of humdrum work.  Far from the madding crowd, they escaped to this dreamland, only to be rejuvenated by its balmy breeze and got back to their duty to loot, plunder and impoverish the rich land of Bharat and fatten their coffers and further fan their greed. 

But to give the devil its due, the tea gardens sprang up; the barren hills became the fertile fields of fortune, provided livelihood to workers, who flocked in their thousands, to pluck the tender tea leaves and contribute to the enrichment of the economy of the region.

However, the plantations themselves were no paradise.  I recall Mulk Raj Anand’s outstanding novel Two Leaves and a Bud which reflects social realism and depiction of inhuman behaviour in the layers on working class exploitation. The plantation workers in the novel reveal the growing psychological stigma to survive in the face of exploitation. His purpose was to expose social evils.  Two Leaves and a Bud ends with a tragic clash of interests and destinies.

Darjeeling Tea became the benchmark of excellence and quality in the taste and flavour of the energising brew.   Like the grapes of the Champagne land, Darjeeling Tea also received Geographical Indication Tag and has carved out a niche for itself in the connoisseur’s psyche.  As an inevitable consequence of commercialisation, it merged with the world market and trades in Darjeeling tea was around two times more than the quantity of GI tagged tea grown in Darjeeling Hills, which was about 6.5 million kg in 2021 (much less than the 13 million kg produced per year about two decades ago).

 

The sylvan land of green and evergreen natural bounty became a prey to wanton commercialisation and unbridled urbanisation.  Darjeeling emerged as a ‘must-see’ destination by the experience-hungry travellers from around the world.  The first casualty was the destruction of the virgin forests.  Jungles gave way to concrete jungles.   Once the English historian, Edward Thomson, remarked to Gandhiji that wildlife was rapidly declining in India, to which the Mahatma replied, “Wildlife is decreasing in the jungles, but increasing in the towns.”

 

Cities became monstrosities and the monster is slouching towards Darjeeling hills as well.  Darjeeling remains one of the prophetic forebodings of Albert Schweitzer: “Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall. He will end by destroying the earth.”  As John Keats lamented, “the sedge has withered from the lake, and no birds sing.” 

 

The leviathan of commercialisation has started devouring the peace and quiet of the earthy paradise of Darjeeling.  Darjeeling remains as a sad pointer to the greed of man who wantonly destroys nature for his insatiable greed.  Darjeeling echoes the following lament of Adikavi Valmiki:  

 

मा निषाद प्रतिष्ठां त्वमगमश्शाश्वतीस्समा: ।

यत्क्रौञ्चमिथुनादेकमवधी: काममोहितम् ।।1.2.15।। 15

 

("O savage, since you have killed one of the pair of infatuated kraunchas, you will be permanently deprived of your position".)

 

Of the serene beauty of the pathless woods, Byron has said, as follows:

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar.

 

Now the same cannot be said about most of the tourist-oriented expansion or like the one that creeps on the Hills or the concretization of our beaches.    A kind of time-slip seems to have happened to the symbols of nature’s wild abandon – the mountains, the woods and the seas.

 

As Rachel Carson opened up the inward eyes of the insensitive man in a sensitive nature with her Silent Spring and ignited an environment movement, Darjeeling looks for the return of a ‘Silent Spring.’  Darjeeling should get back what was snatched away from it – its beauty, serenity, fresh air and pervading confluence of nature and humanity in perfect symphony. 

 

If winter comes can spring be far behind? Darjeeling looks forward to ‘fresh woods and pastures anew’.  Can’t Darjeeling be India’s Zermatt – a pristine oxygen hub?

 

Those who love the hills, love the air, love the greens are all optimistic of a new role and a new sky for the simple and sensitive people of this beautiful land.