From: nikolay@husc10.harvard.edu (Philip Nikolayev)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: Subhash Mukhopadhyay wins Gnanpeeth Award
Date: 24 Nov 92 06:01:12 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc10.NIKOLAY.92Nov23220112
Organization: The Kremlin Wall of Harvard
In-reply-to: bhattach@quip.eecs.umich.edu's message of 23 Nov 92 18:33:28 GMT

bhattach@quip.eecs.umich.edu (sayan bhattacharyya) writes:

> In article <NIKOLAY.92Nov22205023@husc10.harvard.edu>
> nikolay@husc10.harvard.edu (Philip Nikolayev) writes:

PN
>>I don't know anything about the politics behind Subhas's award, but
>>I know, practically for certain, that he is West Bengal's finest
>>living poet.

SB
> Of course, such judgements are very difficult to make and very
> subjective, but I think that many Bengalis will disagree with you. (

This may be true, but *most* Bengalis would probably
disagree with you. Not that it matters. Of course, I
don't presume to be an expert on Bengali poetry,
being unable to read the language. I just wanted to
point out that, very probably, Subhas deserves the
award for reasons that are not political.

SB
> I certainly will ; if asked to name the finest living poet of my
> language, I will doubtless name Shankha Ghosh. Even Shakti
> Chattopadhyay writes far better than Subhash Mukhopadhyay does
> nowadays. But of course it is a matter of personal taste).

One shouldn't confuse generations, though. Wouldn't you
agree, also, that both of these would probably admit
they owe a good deal to old Subhas?

SB
> I think that Subhash wrote most of his best poems in the forties,
> fifties and sixties . Of course, a few of his poems during this
> period sometimes degenerated into slogan-mongering for the Party
> (for example the poem about the marxist-led strikes in the
> Braithwaite and Gwalior companies) but this was also the period when
> he wrote the really memorable poems like "Saleymoner Ma" (Saleymon's
> Mother) and "Lal Tooktooke' Din" (Bright Red Day). In many ways his
> poetry of this period is reminiscent of that of Sukanto
> Bhattacharyya , his close friend who died in his early twenties in
> tragic circumstances while the Party was still banned in India.

I know that Subhas was quite prolific in the 80s. I saw some of that
stuff in translation, and talked to my Bengali friends about it.
The translations were interesting, and the consensus of the Bengali
circle was that the originals were superb. There were some amongst
that crowd whose opinion I trusted a good deal.

SB
> His change of heart was apparently brought about, as Philip hints,
> by his disillusionment with the corruption that crept into the West
> Bengal CPI(M) following its electoral success. He also tried to
> portray himself as philosophically dissatisfied with what communism
> had to offer, but I think that the immediate disillusionment with
> the CPI(M) was a more obvious reason. The "storm of hatred" this
> generated in communist circles in Calcutta (Philip Nikolayev's
> words) seems like an exaggerated description.  I was in Calcutta
> when all this happened and the general reaction of the communist
> press was, as I recall, dismissive. Many people I talked to at the
> time opined that Subhash's strange behaviour was brought on probably
> by an onset of senility. Equally inexplicable was his decision,
> following these events, to associate himself with the election
> campaign of a right-centrist party which was rife with corruption.
> The importance of Subhash's recantation "in Bengali intellectual
> history" has , I think, been greatly overestimated by Philip
> Nikolayev.

There is one thing I can vouch for: there has never been a trace
of senility in Subhas. The party, on the contrary, has always
struck me as quite rabid, despite the fact that I have had some
close friends among its members. No, I wasn't in Calcutta when
'all this happened'; but I visited the Comparative Lit. Department 
of the commie-infested Jadavpur University many times a few years
ago, and remember the bidi-smoking, populist-talking professors
whose names escape me now. They cursed Subhas in public, while most
of them admired him in private. I doubt that things have changed
very much since then.

> -Sayan Bhattacharyya.

> -- 
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> Sayan Bhattacharyya          |   Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
> Artificial Intelligence Lab  |
> The University of Michigan   |

Philip Nikolayev
nikolay@husc.harvard.edu