First Light
Authors: Sunil Gangopadhyay
Translated from the Bengali by Aruna Chakravarti
PENGUIN BOOKS
Born in 1934 in Faridpur, now in Bangladesh, Sunil Gangopadhyay came as a refugee to Calcutta in 1947, following the partition of India. The family suffered extreme poverty initially and Sunil, though only in his teens, was forced to find employment. He still managed to continue his education, taking his Master's degree from Calcutta University.
Sunil Gangopadhyay began his literary career as a poet, starting the epoch-making magazine,
Krittibas
, in 1953. Storming into the field of the novel with the trendsetting
Atma Prakash
(1966)âa powerful portrayal of the frustration and ennui of the youth of Calcuttaâhe soon rose to become the leading and most popular novelist of Bengali.
Sei Samai
(1982), which won him the Sahitya Akademi Award,
Purba Paschim
(1989) and
Pratham Alo
(1996) are among his best novels.
*
Aruna Chakravarti took her Masters and Ph.D. degrees in English Literature from the University of Delhi. She has held the post of Reader in Janki Devi Memorial College, one of the affiliated colleges of the university, for many years and is, at present, its principal. She is also an author and translator of repute.
Her first translation,
Tagore: Songs Rendered into English
(1984), won the Vaitalik Award for excellence in literary translation. Her translation of Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyaya's immortal classic,
Srikanta
, is deemed her best work, having won the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award for 1996.
Srikanta
was published by Penguin India in 1993.
Those Days
, a translation of Sunil Gangopadhyay's award-winning novel
Sei Samai
, also published by Penguin India, followed in 1997. Aruna Chakravarti has also authored a biography of Sarat Chandra entitled
Sarat Chandra
:
Rebel and Humanist
(1985) and a work of literary criticism entitled
Ruth
Prawer Jhabvala: A Study in Empathy and Exile
(1998).
For Poocham and Bhaiâto grow up and read . . .
In 1882 Rabindranath, the young scion of the Thakurs of Jorasanko, published a slim volume of poems entitled
Bhagna Hriday
. Though the poet was practically unknown, even in Bengali, the book found its way, somehow, into the royal palace of Tripura. The maharaja, who had recently lost his queen consort, read the poems and was so moved by them that he sent an emissary to Calcutta bearing gifts and a citation for the poet. This historical event is recorded in the opening chapters of Sunil Gangopadhyay's
Pratham Alo
(
First Light
).
In a critical way, this hook is a sequel to the author's earlier novel
Those Days
âa transcreation in English of the award-winning
Sei Samai
. They are both mega-narratives designed on the same lines and the reading of one is enriched by the other. But the two novels are structured as discrete texts linked by some common themes and characters. The undeniable resemblance between the two gives rise, inevitably, to the speculation of whether or not
First Light
brings to a conclusion the story of
Those Days
. It also opens up questions regarding the extent of history and historical authenticity in the novel. It might he profitable to open the introduction by attempting to answer some of these questions.
The events of
Those Days
, actual and imagined, took place between 1840 and 1870âa period which witnessed a unique movement in Bengal, the highlights of which were the germination and slow stirring into life of a social and religious consciousness and the emergence of a middle class that idealized British rule and used its support to usher in considerable change in Hindu society. This movement, which came to be known as the Bengal Renaissance, spread gradually to encompass the whole of India. Evoking time as protagonist and characters, historical and fictional, as bit players in the destiny of a nation, Sunil Gangopadhyay created a modern epic offering valuable insights into the era that saw this phenomenon
In the present novel the same exercise is stretched further.
First Light
takes over from where
Those Days
left off. Spread over a vast canvas that stretches across three continents, the novel depicts the social, political and literary awakening of India during the years that followedâanother thirty years, approximately between 1880 and 1910. Many of the historical characters are easily recognized for they occupy spaces inherited from their predecessors in
Those Days.
Rani Rasmoni is dead but her spirit lives on in the persona of Ramkrishna the priest of the temple she built in Dakshineswar and after him, in that of his spiritual successor Vivekananda. The Thakur family of Jorasanko is a strong presence in
First Light
, as it was in
Those Days
, but the focus has shifted from Dwarkanath and Debendranath to their progeny. Infact the title of the novel derives from the genius of the greatest of them allâRabindranath the poet, playwright, painter, composer, educationist and nationalist. The dawn or âfirst light' of Rabindranath's creative inspiration evolves, over the course of the novel, into a powerful symbol of awakening. The latter half of the book traces the first stirrings of resentment against foreign rule and the growth of a nationalist consciousness. It also documents the revolutionizing of life and values sparked off by the scientific discoveries of the West.
Other historical characters of the period, who are household names in Bengal and outside it, are also present here. Stoking cultural memory the author offers astonishingly lifelike delineations and penetrating analyses of lives and characters of the poet king of TripuraâMaharaja Birchandra Manikya; the eminent physician and fiery liberal Mahendralal Sarkar; the scientist Jagadish Bose; the poet and terrorist Aurobindo Ghosh; the notorious courtesan and brilliant actress Binodini; the freedom fighters Tilak and Gandhi. These and many more who follow in the wake of the historical characters of
Those Days
fill the pages of
First Light.
Is
First Light
, then, an inseparable part of
Those Days
? No. To use the novelist's own explanationââ
First Light
is not another volume of
Those Days
. It is a sequel in time.'
The greatest challenge before Sunil Gangopadhyay was to give these men and women a voice and dialogue with their counterparts, historical and fictional. The extent of his success can be gauged from the taut energy of the prose they speak and
the vibrant authenticity of their thought and action. For, as in
Those Days
, the novel is wedded to facts but flirts with fiction. The magnificient personages listed above move in and out of the pages in free interaction with vividly imagined figuresâthe bastard prince Bharat; the bondmaid Bhumisuta; the âsullied' beauty Basantamanjari and her protectorâthe expansive, ease loving, big hearted Dwarika Lahiri; the atheist turned Muslim fundamentalist Irfan. The strains of their unsung tales are skilfully woven into those of the lives of the great men and women they encounter. Bhumisuta acts with Girish Ghosh and Ardhendushekhar Mustafi; is a friend of Sarala Ghoshal's and cherishes a secret infatuation for Rabindranath. Bharat, an illegitimate prince of the dynasty of Tripura, meets Gandhi and Rabindranath and, caught in a struggle to deliver his motherland from bondage, develops close links with Aurobindo Ghosh, Khudiram and Hemchandra Kanungo. Dwarika is Bankimchandra's protege, has studied in Presidency College with Vivekananda and knows Mahendralal Sarkar.
History has never been presented in a more colourful package. But a novel such as this throws up other questions as well. What perspective or ideology colours the author's delineation of historical characters and events? How much of it is fact and how much fiction? To answer this I must fall back on the author's own comments. âHistory is a record of palpable facts,' Sunil Gangopadhyay wrote in the epilogue to
Sei Samai
. âFiction is not. The fiction writer, even when depicting historical truth, has to invest it with the light of the imagination.' Consequently Sunil's historical characters think, act and feel as he sees them do in his mind's eye. Critics have had problems with some of his delineationsâin what they perceive as distortions and trivialization of some of the most eminent men of the land. Mahendralal Sarkar is projected as an abusive bully who uses foul language. Ramkrishna is wimpish and fretful. Vivekananda's passion for tobacco and spicy food is at variance with his declared ideals of austerity and abstinence. Bankimchandra's arrogant self-confidence is a mask and his fear of gossip and slander swamps his fatherly love. And above allâRabindranath. Rabindranath, who is used as a nodal reference in Sunil's multidirectional novel, is loaded with
attributes some of which are distinctly unpalatable. For he is not only a self-centred artist who neglects his wife; he needs women, other than her, to liberate the poetry trapped in himâhis sister-in-law, Kadambari, in the first flush of his youth, and his young niece Indira in his prime.
Sunil Gangopadhyay, however, is non-judgmental, and herein lies the strength of his novel. A judicious balance is maintained, on the whole, between fact and fiction and the large cast of characters is well controlled. The novelist, however, denies any attempt to control his created world. âAs the narrative flows on to an undefined end,' he writes in his epilogue to
Pratham Alo
, âso do the characters. When I first brought the king's bastard Bharat into the narrative I didn't dream that he would come to dominate the entire novel in the way he has done. I had thought to make Rabindranath the hero . . .'
New Delhi
December 2000
Aruna Chakravarti