066. Where The Mind Is Without Fear. Rabindranath Tagore Poem. Reintroduced By P S Remesh Chandran

066
 
Where The Mind Is Without Fear. Rabindranath Tagore Poem. Reintroduced 

P S Remesh Chandran

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum

Article Title Image By Karl and Ali. Graphics: Adobe SP.

Tagore was one of the most musical-minded poets of the 19th century who lived to see the glories and advancement of the 20th century also. India’s supreme educational visionary, he started Saanthi Nikethan in Calcutta which grew into the Viswa Bhaarathi World University. Tagore was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Where The Mind Is Without Fear is the 35th song in Gitanjali, his Nobel collection of poems, Gitanjali meaning Dedication of Flowers.
   
Tagore grew up in an unbelievably intoxicating atmosphere of music and dance and literature. Who will believe he would ever write poems with no music at all?
 

Tagore was born in a house where veena, tamburu, harmonium, mridamgam, tabala and flute resounded day and night from every room, and that great house in Calcutta had so many rooms too. It was a large family, every member being artists, painters, singers, poets, musicians or dancers. Father, mother, uncles, aunts, in-laws, brothers, sisters, nieces- everyone immersed in art or music or dance. He grew up in an unbelievably intoxicating atmosphere of music and dance and literature. Who will believe he would ever write poems with no music at all? He himself wrote and tuned more than Five Hundred songs in his Bengali language; they gained wide popularity in Bengal and constituted that famous branch of Bengali Music which later came to be known as Rabindra Sangeetham. So, we have a real musician with us, who also cared to write songs, plays and short stories, in Bengali as well as in English, all excelling one another. 

In exquisiteness of the music in his poems, Tagore is comparable only to Omar Khayyam, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Percy Bysshe Shelley.
 

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwQWwZsiDI4&t=64s

Even though the tunes of almost all his Bengali songs are known, as he himself had tuned them, the tunes of songs which he wrote in English still remain a mystery. That they also had exhilarating tunes hidden in them was certain but he never cared to reveal them to public. It seems this expert and visionary in the field of education, literature, music and art, wished to keep them as a challenge to the whole English-speaking world, for them to rediscover in their time and leisure. He hardened the challenge by locking his lines too. The standard locking method he used was positioning the start and end of lines where they should not be. In general appearance, his English poems would look like prose-poems, generally known in English literature as free-verse. But once we shed academic pride and approach these poems as enjoyers, we have the option to try and try and try sincerely to sing them in their tunes and in some unexpected moment, they will click and unlock themselves and the original tunes without which these poems could not have been written will be revealed to us. In exquisiteness of the music contained in his poems, Tagore is comparable only to Omar Khayyam, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Percy Bysshe Shelley. The fact was the world came nowhere near what he expected the world to do in this intellectual challenge of his, with the result that Tagore still remains widely mistaken as a free-verse poet in English. 

The most paradoxical thing about recognizing Tagore as a writer is, his Nobel Prize Collection Gitanjali of 1913 was Tagore in his least brilliance.

Educated in England, firm-rooted in traditional Indian style of teaching, and open to the whole world’s literary influence, we see him in counsel with Gandhi, agreeing and disagreeing, conferring with Einstein in closed rooms and they never revealing the subject of their discussions, touching musical chords in Sarijini Naidu, the Nightingale of India, switching Romaine Rolland to oriental themes, moving Kahlil Gibran to read and enjoy him and causing Haldane to accept Indian citizenship. What shall we call this person with wide acceptance, reputation and influence? The National Poet of India is too narrow a title for Rabindranath Tagore. His poems made people awakened and alert. His plays made people roused and kinetic. His stories made people weep, and occasionally, laugh. The treasure-trove of Bengali and English literature he produced remains unparalleled and unique in this world. Even his love-songs were classic creations of harmony with nature, mostly in Bengali. He was in actual love with nature! The most paradoxical thing about recognizing Tagore as a writer is, his Nobel Prize Collection Gitanjali of 1913 was Tagore in his least brilliance. 

He instituted Santhi Nikethan as a school where classes were conducted in the lap of nature, amid bird-cries and murmuring streams, under shades of trees, in mango gardens.
 

A school is an assembly of teachers and a class is an assembly of learners, with no walls and buildings. When Tagore conceived an educational institution, he conceived it without walls and buildings. He instituted his Santhi Nikethan, the Abode of Peace, as a school where classes were conducted in the lap of nature, in the midst of bird-cries and murmuring of streams, under shades of trees, in mango gardens. We have noted his openness to the world, his firm-rootedness in Indian teaching styles and his dislike for bondage, slavery and intellectual darkness. To celebrate these three important views, he created three of his most musical and famous poems, and sure, locked their lines too, intellectually challenging the world in general, and the academic community in particular, asking can they ever unlock and sing these lines. Who will deny he was playful also? Anyway, his stories and plays are full of little children. He could easily have revealed their original tunes but he chose not to and to leave it to time. They still remain the most challenging and unyielding in musification and musical recitation, eternally mistaken as free-verse poems. They are, Leave This Chanting, Govinda’s Disciple and Where The Mind Is Without Fear, respectively. 

Tagore pointed fingers at world’s ignorance, fear and exploitation, like Shelley did in his Song To The Men Of England, without actually pointing fingers at anyone.


Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHnjSnH1qa8

Without knowing the cosmopolitan world Tagore lived in and the broad world perspective he cultivated and held, we cannot understand the meaning, depth and relevance of his poem Where The Mind Is Without Fear. Only when we are able and intellectually equipped enough to enjoy the liquidity and clearness of the waters that fed into the pool of his imagination can we understand and enjoy fully this trio of poems and laugh with heartiness at the skill with which Tagore pointed fingers at the whole world’s ignorance, fear and exploitation, like Shelley did in his Song To The Men Of England, without actually pointing fingers at anyone. It was the time of industrial revolution and exploitation and economic slavery throughout the world, in Russian, British and German Empires. The world was on the brink of October Revolution. Temperatures were high everywhere in the world. What state of affairs are described in this poem existed in British India and in the other inhuman empires as well. The Russian Empire collapsed within three years in 1917 and the British and German around 1947. It was only natural and logical that all these three empires collapsed within 25 years of his envisioning and a little breeze, sunshine and freshness seeped into the world just as Tagore prayed in this song. 

The poem’s dual purpose of unveiling the position to which Britain brought a country and being a scale of measure to gauge if India has progressed any, after half a century of independence.
 

When we pray, if we pray for riches, it is clear we are very poor. If we pray for health, we are then certainly sick. And if we pray for freedom, we are sure in shackles, bondage and hands and feet fettered. Written in the peak hours of the cruelty and brutality of the British administration in India, around 1910, Where The Mind Is Without Fear is Tagore’s Utopia, in a sense, in which he presents his dream world of liberation, freedom and upliftment for his country and his world. The distance between his dream and the real state of affairs in his country is far, and he skillfully brings to world's attention the state into which his great nation has been made to fall by the British administration. He does this without offending anyone, and as was expected from an England-educated noble genius. As an aftermath of the Second World War and due to severity of the Indian Independence Movement, the British were however forced to leave India in 1947. But six years earlier, Tagore had died without seeing his free India. In present times, this poem serves the dual purpose of unveiling the horrible downtrodden position to which Britain brought his country and its heritage, and being a scale of measure to gauge if India has progressed any, after half a century of independence. 

In countries condemned to live in darkness and gloom, people will hope for a ray of light in the far distant horizon, expressed through their poets and visionaries like Tagore and Shelley.
 

Think about a country anywhere in this world where people live in constant fear and terror of evil and horrible things that can happen to them from authorities- they can be brutally trodden over and crushed down to death by soldiers’ horses, cut down by police bayonets, hunted down by government spies, betrayed by neighbours who work in collision with authorities, imprisoned for saying things publicly and executed without trials for speaking against government. Do not wonder where such countries were or are existing. Look how people lived in Asian, African and American colonies under the British, French, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish conquerors in the past- suppressed, oppressed and cruelly beaten, brothers, sisters, wives and children raped and killed before them, flogged to death or executed publicly in gallows as a warning to all. Look how people lived even till recently in totalitarian and militaristic states like Russia, China and Germany, constantly fearing when GRU, MSS or Gestapo will knock on doors at the dead of night. So, fear has not gone from this world, nor will it go. In such miserable conditions of animalistic living, whose heads will not be lowered due to helplessness and shame? In such hopeless countries which are not illuminated by the light of knowledge but condemned to live in perpetual darkness and gloom, their people will hope for a ray of light, of knowledge, in the far distant horizon, expressed through their poets and visionaries like Tagore and Shelley. Knowledge is something to be pursued in peace and calmness. One should be free, unencumbered by jealous and spiteful authorities watching like hawks, to access knowledge. Do not anyone interpret Tagore’s lines that he wished for free knowledge for his people. 

Why cannot we travel throughout ancient civilization routes like Huen Tsang, Fa Hien, Marco Polo, Barbosa, Nicolo Conti, Sulaiman, Megasthenes and many others did through ages, without Pass Ports?

 

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxgGvw5SIqk

If we travel through great land masses of the world- Africa, Asia, America, when we pass each country and reach the border, we will be asked Pass Ports and Vista. What system is this? Cannot we travel throughout ancient civilization routes like Huen Tsang, Fa Hien, Marco Polo, Pliny, Buchanan, Barbosa, Nicolo Conti, Sulaiman, Megasthenes and many others did, through ages? Not anymore. Even though it is a single world filled with people who all look alike, narrow nationalist feelings have caused it to be broken up into fragments by raising domestic walls around each little hostile piece. Which intelligent and sensible man will not grieve at the prospect of loosing all worlds beyond, for a small confined one of his own? This genuine grief of the open-minded, civilized and cultured man brutally suppressed down and walled in by worthless administrators in tyrannical states is such unearthly, godly, universal and eternal that world has begun to respond, in some land masses, initiated by the wise and thoughtful in those parts of the world. In Europe, if you have a single Pass Port, you can travel through all signatory countries now, spending the same Euro wherever you go. Tagore wrote this poem in a time when Bertrand Russell, H.G.Wells, Arnold Toynbee, George Orwell and many other visionaries were thinking about oneness of the world. 

We have learned about Euphrates and Tigress giving birth to Mesopotamian civilization, Iraq serving as a beacon of light, hope and enlightenment to the world and Baghdad shining as a seat of learning.

Mankind has a destination, a purpose, in life. But in totalitarian, militaristic, colonial and undemocratic states, they cannot pursue this purpose but can only do what the state says to do. In such countries, day after day, decade after decade, people are compelled and forced to do what they do not like but what authorities very much like. Life, for people, becomes a burden of dead habits and weights there. How much tirelessly and hard people strive in their lives to achieve man’s missions, with their arms stretching towards perfection in life, their lives will only become purposeless and futile in the end, in such countries with only persecution and suffocation and no freedom. Every spoken word will be an untruth, clothed to disguise personal motives as state’s wishes, to keep slaves in perpetual subjection and sovereigns in unquestioned power. Gradually the clear stream of logic and reason looses its way and dries up, and vanishes into the dreary desert sand of dead habits and purposelessness in those countries. We have learned about Euphrates and Tigress giving birth to Mesopotamian civilization, Iraq serving as a beacon of light, hope and enlightenment to the world and Baghdad shining as a seat of learning. Last we heard from that great city was, Saddam Hussain was storing and using chemical warfare weapons, slaying his own people in tens of thousands and finally succumbing to world’s will power. So, Tagore was right in his poem: lack of logic and reason kills not only the people of a country but its soul too. It can happen anywhere, anytime, once dictators ascend the throne. 

We cannot touch and feel a state, unless through its people. If we already have touched a nation and felt it good, know that its people are good, well nurtured and benevolent.

Who has more freedom and responsibility for thought and action- the citizens or the state? It is an age-old question, discussed well and having a well-cut answer. A state cannot think unless through its people. And it cannot act, unless through its people. People are real, and the state is amorphous, something not precipitated. We cannot touch and feel a state, unless through its people. If we already have touched a nation and felt it good, know that its people are good, well nurtured and benevolent. State is a conviction of its people, something they envision in their absolute freedom, something they achieve through the collective thought and action of their unrestrained minds, led forward by the godly inborn purity of their self awareness and self respect. Putrid rulers cannot force people to build their nation: they can only force and people will obey, but they will not believe. To become a heaven of a state, it has to be conceived that way by its people, goaded by goodwill for the whole world, because, once it has built its ideal nation, human mind will not stay in that cocoon; it will wish to pass to worlds beyond. 

You can view, listen to and download the most challenging Tagore songs in Bloom Books Channel, absolutely free.

 

04. Slide Bloom Books Channel.
 

Many people in the world, in all continents, have tuned, orchestrated and video-produced many of Tagore’s songs in English, as they are very popular among students and teachers and included in university studies. Some recordings came very close to original tunes, some nowhere near them and most not at all with any tune. In India, his home country where he is celebrated as National Poet, no attempts were made in the academic world or by authorities to orchestrate his English songs. Even Prasar Bharathi Corporation, All India Radio and Door Darshan with their vast resources and enormous funds, did not even try during the past fifty years. Try these three most challenging of his songs from Bloom Books Channel in You Tube. They are of course crude recordings made with pagan tools, created by poor people, but they do have a tune and they are the only sincere attempts ever. Remember, they are just prototypes for the world’s children, released into public domain, for any one to build upon. Someday, fine recordings of these songs will come, from those little children who download them now.

1. Where The Mind Is Without Fear
2. Leave This Chanting
3. Govinda’s Disciple

First published on: 16th September 2014
 

Article Title Image By Micael Widell. Graphics: Adobe SP.

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Pictures Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
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Appreciations, Articles, English Literature, Essays, Indianwriters, P S Remesh Chandran, Rabindranath Tagore, Reintroductions, Reviews, Sahyadri Books Bloom Books Trivandrum, Stories, Tagore Songs, Tagore Videos, Where The Mind Is Without Fear


About the Author P. S. Remesh Chandran: 

05. Author Profile Of P S Remesh Chandran By Sahyadri Archives.

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of Swan: The Intelligent Picture Book. Born and brought up in the beautiful village of Nanniyode in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Trivandrum, in Kerala. Father British Council trained English teacher and Mother University educated. Matriculation with distinction and Pre Degree Studies in Science with National Merit Scholarship. Discontinued Diploma studies in Electronics and entered politics. Unmarried and single. 

Author of several books in English and in Malayalam, mostly poetical collections, fiction, non fiction and political treatises, including Ulsava Lahari, Darsana Deepthi, Kaalam Jaalakavaathilil, Ilakozhiyum Kaadukalil Puzhayozhukunnu, Thirike Vilikkuka, Oru Thulli Velicham, Aaspathri Jalakam, Vaidooryam, Manal, Jalaja Padma Raaji, Maavoyeppoleyaakaan Entheluppam!, The Last Bird From The Golden Age Of Ghazals, Doctors Politicians Bureaucrats People And Private Practice, E-Health Implications And Medical Data Theft, Did A Data Mining Giant Take Over India?, Will Dog Lovers Kill The World?, Is There Patience And Room For One More Reactor?, and Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book. 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PSRemeshChandra 
You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/user/bloombooks/videos
Blog: http://sahyadribooks-remesh.blogspot.com/
Site: https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/
E-Mail: bloombookstvm@gmail.com
 

Post: P. S. Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books, Trivandrum, Padmalayam, Nanniyode, Pacha Post, Trivandrum- 695562, Kerala State, South India.

063. Tolerance. E M Forster Essay. Reintroduced By P S Remesh Chandran

063.

Tolerance. E M Forster Essay. Reintroduced By P S Remesh Chandran
 
Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum

 
First published: 19th Sep 2014

E.M.Forster was a celebrated British literary figure who knew deep about the philosophy of the East. He made three visits to India and became familiar with the Hindu, Muslim and Anglo-Indian visions in India. His famous novel A Passage To India was made into a movie by David Lean. In a radio broadcast, he argues in favour of tolerance. His plea for tolerance is to be heeded by all countries; especially since in all continents have problems of cessation and separatism.

A sound state of mind is the only sound foundation to base a stable and lasting civilization.

Tolerance is a dull virtue. It just means, putting up with people. Forster laments that no one has ever written an Ode To Tolerance or raised a statue to her. It is the quality which is most needed in a world constantly threatened with wars. It is the only force which enables different classes and races of people to settle down together as in India. Tolerance is the sound state of mind to base a civilization upon. A sound state of mind is the only sound foundation to base a stable and lasting civilization. In Forster's opinion, God alone has a sound state of mind to base a lasting civilization. ‘Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it.' 

We say love is what is needed, and then sit back, and the world goes on as before without change. 

Tolerance is not just love. Spiritual qualities like love fails when put into practical uses such as solving the world's problems. Love is a failure in public affairs. 'Love is what is needed' we say, and then we sit back, and the world goes on as before. We do nothing to change either the world or our attitude towards the world. When love fails, people will begin to exterminate those whom they do not like, to prevent the disaster from which tolerance need be practised. We know, the Irish and the Scots were not loved much by the Englanders and the South Irish parted from United Kingdom. The Scots in their referendum chose to remain in that union, by a very narrow margin and we do not know what they will choose in future. We know Canada has problems with Quebec, Spain with Catalonia, Belgium with Flanders, and China with so many conquered states like Tibet, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and not-yet-conquered nations like Japan and Philippines, with far-reaching-plans with even the distant South Sudan in Africa. Without love for the other peoples contained in their hold and for ethnic minorities living in their provinces, where will these countries go in this world of instant communications and online referendums? 

Tolerance is to be practiced in the queue, in the street, in the railway, in the office, at the factory, at the telephone. 

Tolerance has to be practiced by peoples, classes, communities and also nations. It has to be practiced in almost all spheres of human activity- in the queue, in the street, in the railway, in the office, at the factory, at the telephone. Tolerance is not weakness or surrender. It is the strong tolerating the weak. It is a temporary arrangement till the world is put in perfect order. According to Forster, tolerance is just a makeshift, suitable for an overcrowded and overheated planet. The world is shockingly full of people who are equally responsible for the colour questions and racial prejudices still prevailing in our globe, still prevailing in even advanced countries such as England, E.M.Forster’s home land. These inferior qualities cloud the future of even the advanced civilizations. Rather than finding fault with others, it is better we turn to ourselves for betterment. It is very easy to find fanaticism in others, but difficult to spot it in our selves. Till The National Home is completed and Love enters it, Tolerance need be retained as a stop-gap arrangement.

All philosophers, prophets and saints from the East have been preaching tolerance through ages. Theirs is a long line.

Forster is not alone in advocating for this virtue of tolerance. All philosophers, prophets and saints from the East have been preaching tolerance through ages. From Gauthama Buddha to Mahatma Gandhi- theirs is a long line. In the West also, Saint Paul, the Apostle, Dante, the Italian poet, Erasmus, the Dutch scholar, Montaigne, the first French essayist, were all preaching tolerance in Europe. In England, there were John Locke, the philosopher and Sydney Smith, the priest. And there was also Forster's friend, the famous Lowes Dickinson. In Germany it was Goethe. We may sum up the names of these supreme lovers of mankind in a small poetical refrain which nobody wrote yet:

Buddhan, Gandhi, St.Paul, Dante,
Erasmus, Montaigne, John Locke,
Sydney Smith and Low`es Dickinson
And the poet Goethe.

 
(Prepared as a lecture delivered to literature students in May 1992. Slight modifications made since then)
 
Dear Reader,
If you cannot access all pages of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, kindly access them via this link provided here: https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/wiki-nut-articles

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Appreciations, Articles, British Philosophers, British Writers, E M Forster, E M Forster Essays, English Literature, Essays, Essays On Education, Essays On Tolerance, P S Remesh Chandran, Reintroductions, Reviews, Sahyadri Books Bloom Books Trivandrum, Stories, Tolerance


Meet the author
 
PSRemeshChandra

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of 'Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book'. Unmarried and single. Born and brought up in Nanniyode, a little village in the Sahya Mountain Valley In Kerala.

060. The Home Coming. Rabindranath Tagore Story. Reintroduced by P S Remesh Chandran

060.

The Home Coming. Rabindranath Tagore Story. Reintroduced by P S Remesh Chandran

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum

First published: 14th Sep 2014
 

Rabindranath Tagore was an educator, social reformer, poet, playwright, novelist and short story writer. His poetical collection Gitanjali was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Home Coming is the tale of a 14 year old boy who was a nuisance to his mother, was sent away for studying and died there unloved and longing for his home. There has not been a single person in India who did not weep after reading this Tagore story. 

The boy grew up lazy, wild and violent and thought about doing new mischiefs every day.
 

Phatik Chakravarthi was a fourteen year old Bengali boy whose father died very early. He grew up lazy, wild and disobedient. His younger brother Makhan Chakravarthi was quiet, good and fond of reading. Phatik thought about doing new mischiefs every day. One day he and his retinue of boys pushed into the river a wooden log meant to be shaped as the mast of a boat. Makhan, objecting to this and sitting firmly on the log, was thrown to water along with the log. At home, when he was questioned about this, he beat not only his brother, but his mother also. It was then that his uncle from the far Calcutta City arrived. He agreed to take the boy along with him to Calcutta to be educated there. The boy was only glad to leave, but the mother was only half-relieved and half-sad. 

He missed the meadow, mountain and river in his native village, became a failure at school and began to always ask, when holidays would come.
 

Phatik's uncle had three sons of his own and his aunt did not like this new addition to their family. A fourteen year old boy will have his own problems too. He was fast growing up. He was neither a child nor a man, crossing the line in between. He missed the meadow, mountain and river of his native village. Therefore it was no wonder he became a failure at school. He answered no questions, was beaten badly daily at school and ridiculed by all including his cousins. He grew impatient about returning to home and began always asking, when the holidays would come.

 

In his delirium, he talked about things in his native village, asked his mother not to beat him anymore and called out fathom-marks which steamer-sailors in his native village river did.

  

One day Phatik lost his lesson book and was scolded and abused much by his aunt. It served as the last hurt to break him. On a rainy afternoon after school, feeling fever and headache, he sought shelter somewhere and did not return home. He did not want to trouble his aunt any more. Police help was sought the next day. They found him and brought him home, shivering and fallen into a delirious state. He talked about things in his native village, asked his mother not to beat him anymore and called out fathom-marks which steamer-sailors in his native village river did. He moved restlessly, his hands beating up and down. His condition seemed critical to the doctor, and his mother in the village was sent for. When his mother arrived moaning and crying, and calling his names, he was nearing his eternal home which is Heaven. His last words were: Mother, the holidays have come. 

Tagore's story Home Coming was one of the two first glances into the grief and sorrow of little minds, the other being Coventry Patmore's poem, Toys.
 

The question is how we treat our children. Children are the flowers of humanity. Yet, we do not see the grief in those tiny hearts. Up to four years, a child is said to be in the hands of the God, but since then they are this World's property. A bit of love, a soft touch of solace or a tiny word of consolation would be enough for them, but we do not spare them. Millions of children are worn out for want of care, nursing, assistance. Tagore was purposeful in writing such a story as this to open the world’s eyes towards the world of children’s deep sorrows, unheeded by the grown up world. No wonder he was dedicated to children and started that India’s World University, Saanthi Nikethan, where teachers and students sat beneath mango tree shades and learned. Tagore's this story was one of the two first glances into the grief and sorrow of little minds, the other being Coventry Patmore's poem, Toys.

 
(Prepared as a lecture to literature students in 1996)


Dear Reader,
If you cannot access all pages of P.S.Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum, kindly access them via this link provided here: https://sites.google.com/site/timeuponmywindowsill/wiki-nut-articles


Also visit Bloom Books Channel In You Tube

Meet the author

PSRemeshChandra

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of 'Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book'. Unmarried and single. Born and brought up in Nanniyode, a little village in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Kerala.

059. A Nincompoop. Anton Chekhov Story. Reintroduced By P S Remesh Chandran

059
 
A Nincompoop. Anton Chekhov Story Reintroduced 

P S Remesh Chandran   
Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum

Article Title Image By JJ Jordan. Graphics: Adobe SP.

Anton Chekhov was a Russian short story writer whose stories became famous for their surprise endings, just like Oscar Wilde’s, Maupassant’s and O.Henry’s. He found his characters from among the middle class and poor people of Russia. In his story The Nincompoop, he explains how the weak people in this world are crushed easily by the cunning rich. 

Had there been no writers in Russia such as Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky, Alexander Pushkin, Mayakovski, Chekhov and Solzhenitsyn, there would have been no revolution, whether there had been a Lenin or not.

From history we know about the abject poverty of the peasants and workers in Russia and how they were helpless to utter a word against the thorough exploitation by the rich and powerful in the time of the Czars. It was stories like this which prepared people for the coming peasants’ and workers’ revolutions against the ruling aristocrats in that vast sub continent of Russia. It is true, the writers of Russia soon became tired of the political killings following the revolution and writers like Alexander Solzhenitsyn later condemned the suppression of people by communist party monarchs, but it was indeed the writers of Russia who tilled the ground for sowing the seeds of revolution. Had there been no writers in Russia such as Tolstoy, Maxim Gorky, Alexander Pushkin, Mayakovski, Chekhov and Solzhenitsyn, there would have been no revolution there, bloody or not, whether there had been a Vladimir Illyich Ullianov Lenin or not. 

Without ‘Mother’ no revolution would have been possible and without sparks of revolution leaping out here and there no ‘Mother’ would have been thought about.

That the writers and the revolutionaries in Russia shared a mutually respective relationship is undisputed which is a solace and encouragement to historians and students of literature. By reason of his extremely volatile ideas, though was considered as a nuisance by party ranks, Mayakovski made many unforgettable poems about the life in rural Russia. It is remarkable to note Lenin’s comment on Mayakovski which he made in a crowded party committee. “I never like this fellow Mayakovski for his unruly behaviour and indiscipline, which a party cadre like me can never tolerate. But we should all read his that particular poem titled ‘Those Who Hold Committees Everyday’ the hint in which is there is committee everyday, everyday and everyday and nothing is happening any day, any day, any day. That is a poem which opens our eyes to what people think about us so-called communists.” It is interesting to also note that one of the loftiest and lengthy poems about the life of Lenin came from Mayakovski. His poem ‘Let Rail Workers Awaken’ is also equally famous. When we scan the literary and revolutionary fields of Russia, we can see that they magnificently supplemented and supplied each other. Without ‘Mother’ no revolution would have been possible and without sparks of revolution leaping out here and there, no ‘Mother’ would have ever been thought about. 

A Nincompoop is a person who suffers everything without a word of protest, a common figure and national trait in many countries.

A Nincompoop is a person who suffers everything without a word of protest, a national trait in China and Russia which made communist monarchs easily subject their people to persecution and totalitarian tyranny. Such people are there in every community, society, country, age. The rich and the powerful make use of their services and exploit them successfully for long years. There will not be enough genes of rebellion in their blood to revolt. Powerful and crafty writers teach even such inert people to react, protest, unite and cause changes. Like almost all other Russian writers, Anton Chekhov indeed was against such submission and surrender. We know, Anton Chekhov’s stories have a surprising twist towards the end and we shall see what it would be in this story. 

Four days one child was sick and three days the teacher had toothache. Seven rubles gone from salary!

The Master of the House and the Governess of His Children, Julia, are the only characters in the story. One day the Master called Julia to settle their accounts till then. He will not part with a single Ruble unnecessarily. And she had no protest. They had agreed on a salary of forty rubles a month but he was now willing to pay her only thirty rubles. It is OK for her. She had worked for two months and five das but he would count only two months. Thus an amount of sixty rubles only was due to her. Again OK. Nine Sundays and three holidays were taken away and twelve rubles also were taken away. Four days one child was sick and three days the teacher had toothache. Seven rubles gone! Julia broke a cup and saucer and it was only right to deduct two rubles. One child climbed a tree and tore his jacket. The other child’s shoes were stolen by servants in the house. Fifteen rubles less. An advance of three rubles had been paid but then Julia objected. She had been paid no advance but a gift of three rubles by the wife. He won’t listen to objections. He deducted ten plus three equals thirteen rubles anyway. So, she is to be paid eleven rubles, not eighty. He readily gave eleven rubles in cash. No objections. She even said Merci, in thanks. It was then that the Master of the House exploded: Why didn’t you ever protest in spite all this cunningness and stubbornness on my part in cheating you? ‘In other houses everything was taken away through clever calculation, here I got at least eleven rubles’- was her reply. This slavish subjectivity was characteristic of all Russian women. The Master was only testing the Governess of his children and gave Julia the full eighty rubles in cash, and he scolded her for behaving like a Nincompoop. She ought to have protested in those other houses. It is very easy for the weak in this world to be crushed by the cunning, and protestation is the only way out. Julia learned her lesson anyway. Now we know how writers in Russia prepared their people for protestation, change and revolutions.
 
The life of Anton Chekhov:

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov 1860-1904 was a Russian doctor who not only delighted but excelled also in writing plays and short stories. They became classics and he is now considered as one of the founding figures of modern drama. In modern short story also his role was none other. His father, Pavel Yegorovich Chekhov was Russian and his mother Yevgeniya Morozova was Ukrainian. They were merchants by tradition. His father had musical qualities and his mother story-telling abilities. He benefited from both. They fell in finance, lost house and properties and lived in poverty in Moscow. By writing literary pieces for newspapers and doing menial jobs he continued his university education and reached Moscow where he took his medicine degree in 1884. By that time he had also gained footing as a writer. Celebrity publishers and printers had already noted him and his was paid handsomely for his regular pieces. He also began to write for the theatre. He also travelled extensively through Russia. Since their fall in fortune, he had also financing his family’s life. In 1892 he even bought an estate near Moscow and even became a landlord- a model landlord who helped and dispensed medicine free!

In 1898 he purchased land and built a villa in Yalta where he preferred to stay with his widowed mother and sisters, his brothers been died. In 1901 he married the actress Olga Knipper who stayed in Moscow and he in Yalta as he wished: ‘he didn’t want his moon to appear in his sky everyday’. Chekhov died of tuberculosis six years later in 1904 in Germany. Anton Chekhov’s death like ‘sleeping peacefully like a child’ would remind us of the death of Tennyson ‘lying in his bed, the full moon falling on his face, with a Shakespeare in his hand’!

For many writers, what Matthew Arnold wrote is true: their readers cannot reach the finer ones due to the thick surrounding undergrowth of too many inferior ones as in the case of Wordsworth. But not for Chekhov! His short stories already numerous in number are almost all masterpieces. Even if his plays, novellas and letters all vanish, his short stories will keep him immortal. Comedy and light humour are hallmarks of Chekhov stories. Translations of his works gained him international fame. Today many literary critics consider him second only to Shakespeare.

Four-act plays, one-act plays, novels, novellas, nonfiction and short stories:

The noted four-act plays by Chekhov are Untitled Play 1878, Ivanov 1887, The Wood Demon 1889, The Seagull 1896, Three Sisters 1901, The Cherry Orchard 1904. On The High Road 1884, Swansong 1887, A Marriage Proposal 1889, The Wedding 1889, and The Night Before The Trial 1890 are one-act plays. The Shooting Party 1884 is a novel and The Steppe 1888, The Duel 1891, Three Years 1895, and My Life 1896 are novellas. A Journey To Sakhalin 1895 is nonfiction. His short stories are numerous. 

Article Title Image By Rowan Heuvel. Graphics: Adobe SP. 

Written in: February 1991
First published on: 14 September 2014


Meet the author

PSRemeshChandra

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of 'Swan, The Intelligent Picture Book'. Unmarried and single. Born and brought up in Nanniyode, a little village in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Trivandrum, Kerala. Mother University educated and father British Council-trained Teacher. Matriculation with Distinction and Pre Degree Studies with National Merit Scholarship. Discontinued Diploma Studies in Electronics and entered Politics. 

041. Chocolate Bus. Robert Lynd Essay. Reintroduced By P S Remesh Chandran

041.

Chocolate Bus. Robert Lynd Essay. Reintroduced By P S Remesh Chandran

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum
  


First published: 5th Dec 2011
 

Omnibus was the old name for a bus. When city buses were newly introduced in the London streets, they were uniformly coloured chocolate. Robert Lynd disliked them for their colour which was dull and non-interesting to the eyes and also because they deprived him of the delights of walking. Like A.G.Gardiner’s Bus Conductor, Lynd’s Chocolate Bus reminds us of the many virtues which are leaving us one by one. And buses too may say farewell to us just as row boats did when bridges came into being.

 

The delight of walking is meeting persons on the way, spending a few minutes with them in small talk and having enough psychological delights for the day.  

 

Old timer on London road. Martin Addison.

Suppose we are used to walk long distances and we are used also to like walking those distances. We shall meet so many persons of our acquaintance and not, shall spend a few minutes with them indulging in small talk and serious talk, and before we reach our destination, have enough psychological delights for the day. But when buses begin to ply the route we begin to become lonely on the road. Moreover it would be embarrassing for us to see a person whom we passed on the way walking in front of us at another place after alighting from a bus. In no time we will begin to hate buses. That was exactly what happened to Robert Lynd. He began to hate buses. Lynd’s essays are deep in thought but lucid in style. His essays enriched English language and literature much like his counter part Gardiner. Chocolate Bus is included in his collection of essays ‘Solomon In All His Glory.’

Birds of the least brilliant colour may sing the most brilliant songs.

Bus in old clean London street. Dr. Neil Clifton.

Do not anyone think that Lynd is blind in his observations, due to his prejudice against the dull coloured Chocolate Buses. He makes several strange observations in spite of these buses denying him vibrant colour patterns pleasing to his eyes and deprives him of the delights of walking. Chocolate which is dull and boring to the eyes of course is charming to the palate. Their delicious taste is savoured by all. Birds of the least brilliant colour would most probably sing the most brilliant songs. Sweets of the poorest favour may sometimes have the richest flavour. In this way perhaps the dull coloured Chocolate Buses also could be of the most beneficial use to mankind.

To see sights for ten miles from a running bus, the focusing muscles of the eyes do the equal labour the biceps muscles of the legs do to run the same distance. 
 

One of the early sensations in England. Simon Osborne.

When we travel in a bus most often we will prepare ourselves to see all the sights along the way. So we sit ourselves on a convenient side seat and begin seeing things. If we do it, before we are not over many miles, we will see that our eyes are closed and we are asleep. When we see sights from a running bus, the actual labour the focusing muscles in our eyes do to focus images before our retina to provide a stable picture is equal to what the biceps muscles of our legs do to run the same distance. No wonder the focusing muscles become soon tired and we fall asleep before long.

Thoughts originating while travelling in a bus will have high voltage and decisions taken then would be coming from a very kinetic mind. 
 

First London Route Master Bus. Luiz Marini, Berlin.

But travelling in a running vehicle stimulates our thoughts too. The speed of the vehicle adds speed to our thoughts also. We know that weight into velocity is momentum. Momentum of the bus can be spent on the road but we, sitting with our fixed weight without the liberty of movement in the confines of a bus, will feel the momentum enter our mind and take off with it. Thoughts originating from us while travelling in a bus will be high voltage thoughts. Decisions taken then would be coming from a very kinetic mind.

Dante ought to have included bus travels as one of the Torments of the Inferno. 
 

Glasgow tram cars Priestley wrote about. Dr. Neil Clifton.

Bus travellers will often have bitter experiences. The buses would be overcrowded and there would not be empty seats. Sometimes there would not even be a foot of floor space empty to stand on. The passengers would feel they are imprisoned in a black hole that is a bus that is rocking also on the pot holes. Mechanical vibration of the bus would enter our heel, head and bones. One will wonder whether this is the fulfillment of the travel dreams of the Greeks, Romans and the other civilized races. Lynd says that the South Sea Islander lolling lazily in his lagoon is unfortunate to miss this unique experience of bus travel since there are no buses in that remote part of the globe.

If buses were made prisons the prisoners would object and crimes would cease to happen. 
 

A London tram car. Photo: John Bennet.

A bus is a mechanical rhinoceros to travel inside which one has to pay also. Bus travellers get no wind except one composed of half dust and another half other people’s breathe. If buses were made prisons the prisoners would object and crimes would cease to happen. Criminals in the ancient world were put in barrels with spikes and rolled down the hills as punishment which was far lighter than to have been condemned to have a bus travel as the punishment. Lynd wonders why Dante did not include bus travel as one of the punishments among the multitude of torments in hell he described in his classic, The Divine Comedy.

The sheep in the field, the fly on the window, the sparrow on the road, all constantly keep moving. Movement is the manifestation of life. 
 

Two old trams in the Transport Museum. Dr. Neil Clifton.

When compared to a travel in the bus, walking has a number of advantages. Walking is a rhythmic and pleasant form of movement. There is a natural rhythm in walking. We are free to walk as lazily as an old dog or as fast as a cock picking food. Walking gives us enough time for sight seeing and thinking. One can stop at shop windows and look into things displayed there, or can peer inside. A walking man gets news also. The greatest pleasure of all in walking is the realization that there is no hurry. It is the law of nature that living things must keep moving. Movement is the manifestation of life. The sheep in the field, the fly on the window, the sparrow on the road, all constantly keep moving. This movement of limbs and wings is the very basis of life. It is pleasanter to move constantly like the planets than to sit still like a heap of stones. ‘Man is the only animal that escaped from perpetual motion and stiffened into stillness while he is yet neither a cripple nor dead.’ Sitting inert has now become a habit to man.

The desire of man to travel with the least body movement caused the invention of vehicles. His inertness is now complete. 
 

A 1984 electric train. David Ingham.

It is the desire of man to travel with the least body movement that caused the invention of vehicles. A survey of the vehicles he developed in their chronological order would reveal his inclinations. First he rode horses which provided an overall rhythmic movement to his muscles. Then came the row boat in which the hands alone had to move and the legs rested. With the invention of the wheel and the sail he became able to move without moving him at all. Cycles and automobiles followed and then came motor cycle, car, bus, ship and aero plane. And now there is the rocket too. His inertness is now complete.

The flowing streams, the playing children and the singing birds no more touch the bus traveller. 
 

Channel Tunnel Train emerging. By Xtrememachineuk.

It was this inertness and laziness of man that gave a chance to men with mechanical minds to make inventions. Thanks to these vehicles man is now able to transport people in bulk numbers from place to place. In all these vehicles man needn’t move his body. He only has to buy a ticket. But he no more enjoys the various amusements on the way. The flowing streams, the playing children and the singing birds no more touch him. He is now shut inside a box on wheels and carried away at top speed. One has no more life than a posted letter so far as he is sitting in a travelling vehicle. It was great movements of mind and body matter that created renaissance in Italy four hundred years earlier. Henceforth there would be no renaissance. Riding in buses has killed the kinetic minds in our society. Thus this essay is really Robert Lynd’s ‘Ode to Walking.’

Many fear the channel tunnel will gradually destroy the euphoric and pleasant isolation England enjoyed for many ages.
 

Channel Tunnel car shuttle interior. Tony Hisgett.

However, he is not a cynical critic. He concludes his essay wishing every success to the chocolate brown buses newly introduced in London streets. After these omnibuses the tram cars and the road trains came. Then there was the tube and now there is the channel tunnel which all fear would gradually destroy the euphoric and pleasant isolation the great island nation of England enjoyed for so many ages.

 
[First written in November 1994]

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Pictures Courtesy: Wikimedia Commons
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Meet the author

PSRemeshChandra

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of Swan : The Intelligent Picture Book.