Grandfather Poem by Jayanta Mahapatra

The yellowed diary's notes whisper in vernacular.

They sound the forgotten posture,
the cramped cry that forces me to hear that voice.
Now I stumble back in your black-paged wake.

No uneasy stir of cloud

darkened the white skies of your day; the silence
of dust grazed in the long afterniin sun, ruling
the cracked fallow earth, ate into the laughter of your flesh.

For you it was the hardest question of all.

Dead, empty tress stood by the dragging river,
past your weakened body, flailing against your sleep.
You thought of the way the jackals moved, to move.

Did you hear the young tamarind leaves rustle

in the cold mean nights of your belly? Did you see
your own death? Watch it tear at your cries,
break them into fits of unnatural laughter?

How old were you? Hunted, you turned coward and ran,
the real animal in you plunging through your bone.
You left your family behind, the buried things,
the precious clod that praised the quality of a god.

The imperishable that swung your broken body,

turned it inside out? What did faith matter?
What Hindu world so ancient and true for you to hold?
Uneasily you dreamed toward the center of your web.

The separate life let you survive, while perhaps

the one you left wept in the blur of your heart.
Now in a night of sleep and taunting rain
My son and I speak of that famine nameless as snow.

A conscience of years is between us. He is young.

The whirls of glory are breaking down for him before me.
Does he think of the past as a loss we have lived, our own?
Out of silence we look back now at what we do not know.

There is a dawn waiting beside us, whose signs

are a hundred odd years away from you, Grandfather.
You are an invisible piece on a board
Whose move has made our children grow, to know us,

carrying us deep where our voices lapse into silence.

We wish we knew you more.
We wish we knew what it was to be, against dying,
to know the dignity

that had to be earned dangerously,

your last chance that was blindly terrifying, so unfair.
We wish we had not to wake up with our smiles
in the middle of some social order.

Jayanta Mahapatra
About the Poet

One of the most well-known Indian English poets of the modern era is Jayanta Mahapatra
(1928–present). He is a very sensitive poet who writes on a wide range of emotions, with
most of his poetry focusing on the man-woman relationship. His poetry carries a strong
Orissa flavour. In 1981, Mahapatra became the first poet from India to write in English to get
the Sahitya Academy Award.

Mahapatra is an Indian-English poet born, raised and situated in Orissa. Mahapatra always
felt distanced because he belonged to a Christian family living in a pre-dominantly Hindu
society. The poet's sense of alienation stems from his grandfather’s conversion to Christianity
during the famine in Orissa in 1886.
About the Poem:

The poem talks about the poet's grandfather Chintamani Mahapatra. He converted to
Christianity during the Orissa famine of 1866. The poet poses rhetorical questions regarding
the conversion. It emphasizes on the moral dilemma of having to convert for survival but "at
what cost?”. Having lived as a Christian in a pre-dominantly Hindu society, he
was detached and was often alienated. The poet faced an identity crisis because of the mixed
cultures and insecure childhood as he was neither a complete Hindu nor a Christian.
The famine was very severe and a lot suffered as the relief did not reach on time. It
was preceded by a drought.

Summary:

The pages of the yellow diary express the agony of the grandfather. The land is struck
by famine. It was so severe that the only things to be seen was the cracked fallow earth, the
dust and the dead trees. People became very weak and hunger became so severe that
became animalistic. Sometimes even going as far as consuming raw tamarind leaves. Some
were driven to insanity, sometimes breaking to fits of unnatural laughter. The poet feels that
his grandfather was a coward to run away from hunger. His grandfather chose to convert to
survive. The poet accuses and questions his grandfather's actions as to why he left the rich
culture and heritage for survival. His heart is heavy with feelings of alienation as he is neither
a complete Hindu nor a Christian. Religion is an imperishable aspect of life. It gives faith and
is what makes our identity. Having converted, he turned his back on his own religion, which
let to mixed feelings in theatre goers. Because of this, his heart is heavy with feelings of
alienation as he is neither a complete Hindu nor a Christian. Both he and his son have
forgotten about the famine only knowing about it from books and historical accounts. The
taunting rain is a reminder of the grim past that paved a path for the future. He doubts if he
would be able to interpret his grandfather’s legacy and if the future would also do so because
of the generation gap. He realizes that his grandfather was an invisible piece on a board as it
was his actions and decisions that helped his children and their children live a good life.
The poet wishes to get to know more about his grandfather. Being riddled with questions, he
contemplates whether it was beneficial to have taken the dangerous choice or if he should
have chosen to die with dignity.