FACE TO FACE
Ode to beauty
HARIHARAN BALAKRISHNAN
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Ramakant Rath, the Oriya poet, on his oeuvre and the courage needed to take up poetry as a vocation.
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Two worlds: Poet and administrator, Ramakant Rath. Photo: Hariharan Balakrishnan
OLD hands in Puri remember a lanky lad roaming the seashore in the wee hours of the night that the Republic of India was born. When asked to recall that teenager, Ramakant Rath says he started writing poetry around that time "mainly to impress the girls, but soon I realised that nothing impresses them". He continues in typical self-deprecatory style, "I really don't know why I started writing poetry. Maybe because I was not good at anything else".
After moving to Ravenshaw College at Cuttack, Ramakant continued to write serious poetry. "What spurred me on was the appreciation of readers and the encouragement from senior writers."
Rath spent his formative years in schools in Kalahandi and Bolangir in the tribal belt of Orissa. "I feel I wouldn't have been the poet I am but for my life in those areas. The landscape, the people, particularly the nights of tribal Orissa had a tremendous impact on me. I used to spend a lot of time in these areas during my official postings, and whenever possible travelled at night. There was no electricity. When you sit on the veranda of the rest house, the forests, the hill stream, the whole mountain range bathed in moonlight had a mystique about it."
Contemporary idiom
Though some critics say that he was deeply influenced by T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, Rath refuses to concede he was "influenced" by any poet. "It is one thing to admire and quite another to be influenced," he says. "I have read and admired many European, Latin American and American poets. But I have not consciously followed any single poet."
He says when he started writing; the prevailing trend in Oriya poetry was romantic and highly lyrical. "I thought I would write something different, in a language that suited our times and adequately expressed what the contemporary man felt." Yet, his admiration for "great poets" of the day, like Kalindicharan Panigrahi, Anant Patnaik, Sachi Rautray and Guruprasad Mohanty, is palpable.
About his idea of poets and poetry, here is a sampler: "If you ask me, it is a poet's destiny to be defeated. He certainly cannot write the poetry he wants to. In every other profession there are equal chances of success and failure. But poetry is a vocation where your failure is guaranteed. That way, I should say that a poet is a very brave person. He knows he would be defeated, but keeps on writing."
Asked about managing the dichotomy between his roles as a poet and as an administrator, he says, "My professional career was both an impediment and a help. Often, a poem knocked at my door but I had absolutely no time for it. At the same time, but for this career I wouldn't have seen so many places and met people who became the themes of my poems. If I weren't in this profession, maybe I wouldn't have written the poems I did."
Vital contribution
Ramakant Rath, during his tenure as President of Sahitya Akademi, did silent but solid work. He brought out books of writers in tribal languages. There was a surge in inter-language translations, and the sale of Akademi books leaped. To critics who accused him of not having done enough to boost Oriya literature, his answer is, "Yes, I love my language, in which I have written all my poetry. But as the President of Sahitya Akademi, I can treat my own language only as just one of the many in the country."
Regarding his magnum opus Sri Radha, Rath says that it was totally unplanned. "For four to five years, I had not written a single poem. I thought there was no more poetry in me and that phase of my life had ended. Once when I was in Comilla, a small town in Bangladesh, I couldn't sleep in the sultry night. I was gazing at the stars in the moonlight. It occurred to me that one day I wouldn't be there to look at the stars. So, I wrote my first poem. The anticipation of death, the thought that all this beauty would be beyond my reach some day was the theme. After this, I wrote two or three other poems. As I wrote, I reflected on who else could have experienced this kind of emotion — love and terror in equal measure. I decided that it could be only one person, Radha. I won't claim to be the sole author of these 61 poems. Believe it or not, someone dictated some lines to me; my role was only that of a stenographer. I would put more lines before and after and complete the poem. I have never had such a strange experience. After the book was completed, I was left all alone."
With a post-graduate degree in English literature, Ramakant Rath translated Sri Radha into English. "Frankly, I had not planned the translation. One day, someone came to me and said that he had translated Sri Radha and produced a sheaf of papers. I had one look at them, and was shocked. Then I set about it and completed the translation."
Today, at 71, Ramakant Rath continues to write. His post-Sri Radha work is Palataka, about Krishna. Other poems have flowed from his pen, though the literary world mostly identifies him with Sri Radha. He talks about his next book being the ultimate or penultimate work. But readers, mesmerised by his acute sense of pathos, love and romance, look forward to more gems from Rath's treasure house.
Contact the author at fabalas02@yahoo.com
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