The voyage that never ends

Bengali novelist Samaresh Bose's quest for the 'celestial blinkers' that blind millions has contemporary resonance

Title: In Search of the Pitcher of Nectar

Author: Kalkut (Samaresh Bose)

Translator: Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee

Publisher: Niyogi Books

Pages: 288

Price: Rs 450

In the Bengali novel Shamba, for which he received the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1980, novelist Samaresh Basu retold the story of Prince Shamba from the Mahabharata. Afflicted with leprosy, Shamba searches far and wide for a cure. At the end of his journey, he comes across a wooden idol of the Sun God at the confluence of two rivers and realises: “Nothing in life is meaningless.”

A few decades before this, Basu (I shall use this spelling though the translator uses Bose because it is more widely prevalent) wrote another book about a pilgrimage to another confluence of rivers. The journey to Kumbh Mela at Allahabad (recently renamed Prayagraj) on the banks of the Triveni Sangam, where the Ganga and the Yamuna are said to meet the mythical Saraswati, is described in great detail in his book Amrita Kumbher Sandhaney. Like many of his other works, it was adapted into a popular Bengali film in 1982.

Basu’s younger contemporary, the Bengali novelist and poet Sunil Gangopadhyay, in an obituary published in Indian Literature, the Sahitya Akademi’s literary journal, in 1988, recalled the excitement over the publication of the book: “Soon after the serialization of Amrita Kumbher Sandhane… in Desh under the pseudonym Kalkut, Samaresh Basu became a writer of repute. Dilip Kumar Gupta of Signet Press, publisher of what was then considered the highbrow in literature, declared his intention of awarding a gold fountain pen…” Now, a new translation of the book by English and comparative literature scholar Nirmal Kanti Bhattacharjee makes it accessible to a larger audience.

The greatest merit of this translation is its faithfulness to the original. Those who have read the Bengali text will be able to identify the resonance of the original in the transcreation. In some cases, even the syntax is transmitted unaltered through languages. Take for instance the description of this evening scene at the riverbank in Allahabad: “In the light fog on the other side, I could see a thousand lights burning and hundreds of grey tents standing. Hundreds of people were coming, hundreds of people were going.” If one were to close one’s eyes and listen, it would almost sound Bengali.

However, the light touch of the translator is a tad too light. The book has barely any critical apparatus attached that would help a reader unaware of Bengali literature or the cultural and socio-political context in which Basu produced his text. After all, a translation is ideally for such a reader, isn’t it? There is a glossary of non-English and kinship terms at the end of the book — but it is barely sufficient. There is no translator’s note explaining the various linguistic or political choices Bhattacharjee must have made. Worse: There is no acknowledgment of a previous — partial — translation of the novel by Sharmila Roy in the November-December 2003 edition of Indian Literature.

A short biography of Basu on the back inside cover barely does justice to one of the most prolific and influential writers in Bengali of the late-20th century. In the absence of all this, a reader is left with no choice but to go to the internet to find more details.

Born in Dhaka in 1924, Basu emerged as a major writer in the 1940s. Growing up in desperate poverty, in the years of Quit India, the Bengal Famine, and Partition, Basu embodied the sense of rootlessness and loss that haunted many Bengali writers and artists in those years. Esha Dey, in a critical essay on his oeuvre, claims: “(H)is Uttaranga and Jagaddal have remained to this day the most authentic depiction of the traumatic transition from a decaying, rural, agrarian existence into an industrial and aggressive mode of life.” His writing was in many ways also radical, pushing the envelope and challenging the petit-bourgeoise morality of the Bengali bhadralok.

Basu’s novel Bibar (1964) sparked a debate about obscenity that would eventually engulf all of Bengali culture. Gangopadhyay remembers: “In Calcutta University, Rabindra Bharati and many other institutions, seminars, and symposiums were organised to determine the constituents of the decent and the obscene in literature. …Samaresh Basu would defend his stand with spirit.” The novel would also find a mention in film director Mrinal Sen’s New Wave classic Interview> (1971). It is essential to make a reader aware of this milieu for a true appreciation of the book, which might otherwise seem like another facile addition to the bulging volumes of pilgrimage literature.

By the time Basu published his book, Bengali readers were already familiar with this genre. Perhaps the most famous book of pilgrimage-adventure was Marutirtha Hinglaj, a novel by Kalikananda Abadhut, which described the challenges faced by a group of pilgrims on their arduous journey to the temple of Hinglaj Mata in current-day Balochistan. The novel was adapted into a popular film in 1959, starring matinee idol Uttam Kumar. In Basu’s book, the pilgrims do not have to take camels or trek for days through inhospitable deserts. The narrator simply takes a train from Howrah to Allahabad.

However, the other characteristics of the genre remain intact — the death of a pilgrim, the revelation of hidden identities, and unrestrained interactions between people from different classes, castes, and communities. The Indian Railways would emerge as a unifying and democratising force across the unimaginable variety of languages and geographies of the Indian subcontinent in Shyam Benegal-directed TV show Yatra (1986). In Basu’s novel, one can already see a precursor to this democratic desire.

In recent years, the Kumbh Mela has emerged as a flashpoint for religious conflict that has swept through India in recent years. Last year, even as the country reeled from the deadly second wave of Covid-19, the government green-lighted the festival, which was held in Haridwar, despite warnings that it would lead to a spike in the caseload. Reading Basu’s book in the current context is likely to be a transformative experience for readers as a pilgrimage is for pilgrims.

The writer teaches journalism at O P Jindal Global University, Sonipat. His novel, Ritual, was published in 2020.