Collected Works of Nolini Kanta Gupta - Vol. 7

PASTERNAK. His name and his novel Dr. Zhivago have leapt to the eyes of the world. This book has won him two things: high appreciation from the world, topped by the Nobel prize; and, as a paradox, stern censure from his own countrymen, those armed with political powers. I am not concerned with the resulting controversy. Something else is my topic. I understand that the word 'Zhivago' is cognate to our jiva (a living being or life itself). 'Doctor Zhivago' may be regarded as embodying and illustrating the life-principle of the author himself – the secret of life, as revealed to him. The raison d'être of his book is the significance of life and its course as discovered by him.

The first principle, the guiding motto of Pasternak's vision of life is the unity of all life on earth. The march of life has been one and indivisible in all climes and times. The same vibration of life, the same rhythmic movement is at play in the universe. Man, animal and plant – in all there is only one golden thread that runs through. They are moved by the same tune, the same rhythm and the same life-energy. They have a common nature, a common virtue, a common movement and a common goal. The experience of this union is perhaps the fount of an urge towards Supreme Love. If one loses oneself in this cosmic union, then and then alone will come peace, freedom and the summum bonum of life, whatever that is :

And life itself is only an instant,

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Only the dissolving

Of ourselves in all others

As though in gift to them.

Life loses all its burden, its obligation and becomes almost light as emptiness when we are able to merge and fuse it in the universe.

But behind this conception of the universal life, declaring that "there is no other thing here on earth", there enters a duality with its inner conflict. For individual freedom is the second note of Pasternak's life-principle. No doubt, the whole creation is indivisible, yet it is a close-knit unity in manifold diversity. Seeing in this light, when we focus our attention on the individuality of man we come face to face with quite a different picture. Individuality means not only struggle but a veil of darkness as well – the ugly play of all the hungers and passions. Life becomes a chalice of poison. The individual is condemned to dash himself in vain against the collective solidarity of which he is a part. And thereupon we begin to perceive that the peace, the unity, the supreme identity Pasternak has realised do not belong to the land of the mortals. Even if there is anything in his realisation that belongs to this earth, then it must have penetrated it, passed through and gone far beyond to reveal something of another world. This world as a result turns into a great illusion; and then when one can look upon it as such – wonderful to say – it assumes the beauty of a mirage! This beauty therefore can last as long as the world is taken as a whole. But in an individual life the illusion presents an aweful sight. In spite of a unity in the creation the individual life is a bundle of sorrows and tragedies of which Christ, his Lord, is the very embodiment.

"What do you want to know of the creation which is under the octopus of time and subject to death?" queries the poet.

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Sorry that the world is simpler

Than some clever people think,

Sorry for the drooping thicket,

Sorry that each thing has its end.

There are plenty of similar imageries which give the same lesson:

And white as ghosts, the trees crowded into the road

As though waving good-bye

To the white night which had seen so much.

What life is with all its weal and woe as well as wants and satisfactions has been beautifully illustrated by the poet in a fable wherein we find the true significance of living:

Once upon a time

In a fairy-tale kingdom,

Spurring over

The burs of the steppe,

A horseman rode to battle.

Through the dust a dark forest

Rose to meet him

In the distance.

Uneasiness

Scratched at his heart:

'Beware of the water,

Tighten your girth.'

He would not listen,

Galloped

Full tilt

Up the wooden slope.

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Followed the channel

Of a dried-up stream,

Passed a meadow

And crossed a hill,

Strayed into a defile,

Came on the spoor

Of a wild beast

leading to water,

And deaf to the sound

Of his own suspicion,

Rode down to the gully

To water his horse.

Over the water,

Across the ford,

The mouth of a cave

Lit up like sulphur.

Crimson smoke

Clouded his vision.

A distant cry

Sounded through the forest.

The rider started;

In answer to the call,

Picked his way gingerly.

Now he sighted –

And gripped his spear –

The head,

Tail,

Scales of the dragon.

Light scattered

From its blazing mouth.

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It had trapped a girl

In three coils of its body.

Its neck was swaying

Over her shoulder

Like a tail of a whip.

The custom of that country

Allotted a girl,

Beautiful

Prisoner and prey,

To the monster of the forest.

This was the tribute

The people paid

To the serpent, ransom

For hovels.

Free

To savage her

The serpent twisted

About her arms and throat.

The rider raised eyes

And prayer to high heaven,

Poising his lance

For battle.

Eyes closed.

Hills Clouds.

Pivers Fords.

Years. Centuries.

Knocked down in battle

The rider has lost his helmet.

His faithful horse

Tramples the serpent.

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Horse and dead dragon

Are side by side in the sand,

The rider unconscious,

The girl in a daze.

Blue gentleness lights

The vault of noonday.

Who is she? A queen?

A peasant? A princess?

At times excess of joy

Triples their tears.

At times a dead sleep

Holds them in its power.

At times his health

Comes home to him,

At times he lies motionless,

Weak with loss of blood.

But their hearts are beating.

Now he, now she

Struggles to awake,

Falls back to sleep.

Eyes closed.

Hills. Clouds.

Rivers. Fords.

Years. Centuries.

To the poet the Greek mythological story is not a temporal and spatial occurrence but an everlasting symbol which repeats itself perpetually. The ballad narrates the incomplete and tragic life of man. A youth hastens to save a damsel from the clutch of a python. All the three are either dead or mortally wounded, reeking in blood – perhaps for eternity.

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Is there no escape from this pitiful fate of life? With a hardened heart and a muffled voice one has only to say:

Don't cry, don't pucker your swollen lips,

Don't gather them into creases,

For that would crack the dryness

Formed by the spring-fever.

Verily life is but a constant whirl of rise and fall – a wheel that moves forward but grinding slow and inflicting wounds.

And yet, the poet says, that is not absolutely inevitable, there is always a choice, a way of escape:

However many rings of pain

The night welds round me

The opposing pull is stronger,

The passion to break away.

In fact, the figure of Christ is ever present before his vision. Christ himself is his master, the ideal of human life. The love for his Lord Christ has brought him liberation. When the great crisis came and He had to choose did He not too cry out:

Abba, Father, if it be possible,

Let this cup pass from me.

Still He accepted the Dark Night and passed beyond. He was able to see its necessity and its utility. For calamities are blessings in disguise. Indeed, they should be looked upon s a special Grace of the Divine. The poet cites a parable of the Bible:

Near by stood a fig tree,

Fruitless, nothing but branches and leaves.

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He said to it: "What joy have I of you?

Of what profit are you, standing there like a post?

I thirst and hunger and you are barren.

And meeting you is comfortless as granite.

How untalented you are, and how disappointing!

Such you shall remain till the end of time."

According to the poet it is the supreme Blessing that is capable of making the impossible possible. Is it not a cruel irony? No, it is not so. "When our calamities reach their climax, He rushes upon us and covers us up." Therefore it is said that God appears before us not in the broad daylight but at the dead of night like a thief on tiptoe. The virtue of a spiritual man lies in his capacity to see weal in woe. Ordinarily sorrow is taken as an unmixed evil. But in the vision of the poet there are veins of delight concealed in sorrow, and in their discovery lies the secret of life. The poet says:

That is why in early spring

My friends and I gather together

And our evenings are farewells

And our parties are testaments,

So that the secret stream of suffering

May warm the cold of life.

Sorrow is a form of austerity, though not voluntary but imposed. In winter all nature puts on an austere form. Perhaps, it is for this reason that winter is so dear to Pasternak. Of course, the Russian winter is well-known for its special features, and its scenic effects have passed into' the stuff of the Russian consciousness. As is the wintry external nature, so is the life of man; from the standpoint of esoteric truth, the world is all fog and mist and is but a shocking barrenness. In such conditions what is to be done? We must take shelter in the sanctuary of our heart lit up by our self-dedication.

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God has thus given us a splendid chance for self-concentration. When we are alone, friendless and deserted by everybody; God sends us His divine messenger:

He remembered the majestic mountain

In the wilderness, and that pinnacle

From which Satan tempted him

With world power:

And the wedding feast at Cana,

And the company marvelling at the miracle,

And the sea over which, in the mist,

He had walked to the boat, as on dry land:

And the gathering of the poor in a hovel,

And the descent into the cellar with a candle,

And the candle snuffing out in fright

When the resurrected mail stood up.

It seems that the problem of life can be solved only through the two great sayings of Christ. And the life-principle of Pasternak has developed on the basis of these two sublime ideas. The first is:

The kingdom of heaven is within you.

It is in the depths of our heart that the peace, freedom, light and supreme Love abide. But that does not mean necessarily that our outer life too shall be all peace and freedom from disease and danger. This cannot be expected; nor should it be wished for. The outer life, the normal life and the movements of nature are naturally a play of duality, disharmony and conflict. Yes, in normal life there can be a barren winter. And hence it is that Judas betrayed Christ and even his faithful disciple Peter denied him thrice before the cock crowed. And consequently the second motto is:

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Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's,

The calamities of nature cannot be evaded, they have to be bravely faced. One has to march through the stormy and tenebrous night to reach the Light and Peace beyond – the supernatural – as did Sri Radha to meet Sri Krishna.

Beauty can bloom only in and through courage. It is this courage that inspires us to achieve something noble. Calamities should be turned into opportunities. We have to bear them as Christ bore the Cross, ride on them as our Gods ride on the carrier beasts.¹

¹ The readers may refer to p. 185, vol. 2 of this series for an article originally written in English by the author under the same title.

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