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Kathmandu Sunday May 06, 2001 Baishakh 23, 2058.
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Devkota’s "The Lunatic" : A
revolution within
By Basanta Lohani
Devkota’s monologue, "The Lunatic," is an exposure of the
prevailing social contradictions of the time. The poet has juxtaposed the lunatic plane
onto normal social realities in a way that expresses defiance against the ruling elites
for their monstrous exploitation of the common people. The dichotomous relationship he so
skilfully contrives between the normal and the lunatic plane serves him well to challenge
the feudal establishment. Bal Krishna Sama has rightly commented that Devkota was born
thrice, once with Munamadan, a second time with Shakuntal, and a third time with "The
Lunatic."
In general, the burden of early literary work is basically theological. One
obvious reason for that may be to identity human beings as the creation of God. I do not
intend to go any further in this direction other than mentioning that this genuine human
endeavour to understand oneself degenerated into the hands of some people in the
banalities of priesthood, and the philosophical aspect of religion gave way to ceremonial
regimentation forming structures of exploitation. The is how religion was used to sustain
a social psyche where the ruling class could exploit the ruled as an accepted form of
social and political life. As human awareness increased, literary works began to challenge
this phenomenon. The French Revolution is a case in point. It is a watershed in the
history of the world because it was a revolt against the clergy- sustained hierarchical
exploitation. Thinkers, philosophers and poets took the lead in building opinion that
culminated in that revolution. In this process, poets have transcended to a different
plane forming yet another process of enlightenment. And, I consider Devkota does this in
the persona of the lunatic and heralds the shift in Nepali literature from devotionalism
to modernism.
This poem flows all along in a gradient made of confession and thus picks up
the momentum so subtly that one hardly notices the process of enlightenment that the poet
has been going through. This is the first poem written in a confessional mode in Nepali
literature. The tremendous strength of the poem lies in the poet’s assertion that he
is a lunatic and rises to the higher regions while explaining the more real than the real
world. While climbing on to each successively higher region, the poet experiences layers
of emotion like anger, romanticism, rebellion, all leading him closer and closer to a
stage of enlightenment as he replicates the steps of Siddhartha on his way to Buddhahood.
The poet’s autobiographical experiences by a miraculous poetic process transcend the
human limitations of the flesh and trace the voyage to Nirvana. As the poet says,
"Buddha, the enlightened one touched me in the depths."
Devkota’s tirades ooze out from an unconscious mind to defy what
individuals always become conscious about. "The Lunatic" with its profuse
symbolic implications and metaphors defies the existing social psyche. This psyche
inhibits change but gets sustained because of the nourishment it secures from the pseudo
intellectuals, pretenders and reactionaries through their supportive opinion building
exercises where they can thrive as economic parasites. It is here that the poet disparages
with devastating effect the self appointed guardians of virtues and righteous behaviour, a
feudal continuity of a highly authoritarian pattern of thought and practice.
The first stanza contains merely two lines to bifurcate the human plane into
the lunatic and the normal dimensions so that the poet can camouflage himself for a
hard-hitting frontal attack on the wide disparities of an accepted social order. To this
end, the poet has created a lunatic who remains blissful in his own world that is free
from all inhibitions, man- made barriers, hypocrisies, greed, worldly wisdom.
Devkota’s poetic craftsmanship achieves magnificence when the lunatic introduces his
lunacy to his normal friend in unequivocal naivete.
Surely, my friend, insane am I
Such is my plight.
Here, the lunatic is fully aware of his lunacy as much as he is aware of his
normal friend’s expediency and practical wisdom.
From the second stanza onwards, the poet moves on to building up the kingdom
of his lunatic who is completely divorced from the normal realities but is fully aware
when it comes to relating himself to his normal friend.
In the moonlight,
While the enchantress of heaven is
smiling unto me.
They exfoliating, mollifying,
Glistening and palpitating,
Rise before my eyes like tongueless
things insane,
Like flowers,
A variety of moonbirds,
I commune with them as they do with
me,
In this process, he experiences various facets of life. This very awareness
of life with its wings fluttering towards infinite wilderness through pain and ecstasy is
not in conformity with the prevailing behavioural rhythm and, thus, a threat to the
established social values.
Shocked by the first streak of frost
on a fair lady’s tresses,
For a length of three days my sockets
filled and rolled.
For the Buddha, the enlightened one,
touched me in the depths,
And they called me one distraught.
When I danced to the bursting notes
of the harbinger of the spring,
They called me one gone crazy.
While climbing up to magnificent poetic heights befitting the stature of a
great poet, Devkota compares the normal world to that of the lunatic’s world,
alluring those struggling for the status quo to the blissful world of the insane. The poet
has used this lunatic persona in yet another poem where he discloses his identity to a
beautiful prostitute as one "into the higher region gone astray" so as to make
her understand the reality of her real world and profession. This persona in the poetry
"To a Beautiful Prostitute" though has a different contextual thrust and the
poet it uses only at the end to unravel the mystery of the volte face in his behaviour. So
this lunatic persona is the poet’s poetic genius primarily used in a crusade for
putting across a forceful message.
To you a rose is but a rose,
It embodies Helen and Padmini for
me.
You are strong prose,
But I am liquid poetry.
You freeze, I melt,
You decant when I go muddy.
When I am muddled, you are clear.
And just the other way about.
You have a world of solids,
Mine is one of vapour
Yours is thick and mine is thin.
You take a stone for hard reality,
I seek to catch a dream,
The poet is all out in his pervasive defiance challenging all those who were
lording it over society for their enjoyment of authority, wealth, women and wine. He
becomes mad at their pretentious behaviour. He, thus, calls the king a pauper and
denounces Alexander, the Great and the so-called hermit as a cowardly escapist.
I have called the Nawab’s wine all
blood.
And the courtesans all corpses.
And the king a pauper.
I have denounced Alexander the
Great.
And I have deprecated the so-called
high-souled ones.
The poet’s greatness transcends further when he glorifies someone that
society perceives as a nonentity. Here the poet seems to steal the happiness of being in
the state of social oblivion.
And the insignificant individual I
have raised,
Up an ascending arch of praises,
Into the seventh heaven.
A slight digression here would be useful for a better understanding of the
poetic craftsmanship.
Purely from a well -defined legal boundary, lunacy is related to competence,
a state of the individual when he is incapable of exercising free will to enter into a
contractual relationship. In a feudal setting, the very human existence embodies a social
contract to live in conformity with the will of those in authority. It, thus, becomes a
vehicle for augmenting the welfare of those few at the cost of many. This mechanism is
loaded in such a way that the social psyche is conditioned to approve it as the right and
normal way. This is where Rousseau came in to challenge the divine right, precipitating
into the French Revolution. The lunatic outbursts emerging out from a purely transcending
psychological plane, in such settings, could be a manifestation of defiance. The effect
may not be seen immediately. In the beginning, it may just carve a non-noticeable niche in
the social psyche but such muddy outpouring can produce enough ripples in people’s
consciousness to arrive at a changing social equilibrium over a period of time.
The poet in his beautiful exercise of comic hyperbole has, by the end, built
a storehouse of energy, lunatic energy, in lambasting the bizarre setting of corruption,
greed, callousness and betrayal.
The child of the tempest!
I am the wild eruption of a volcano
insane!
Terror personified!
Lunatic energy is that layer of human emotion that is capable of
transformation into higher energy of a very powerful human expression. It is so because
the strength of suppressing this energy ebbs away as the mind gets rid of its obsession
with an accepted, imposed or evolved social order of exploitation. Where political leaders
channelled this collective emotion for the collective good, countries have progressed and
have seen greater welfare than where it is primarily used for increasing the welfare of
the political leadership that cannot extend much beyond itself. This is the human history
of tension, continuous revolt, upheavals, wars and ceaseless challenges finding its way
into feudal communities, regimentation, fascism, dictatorship, guided democracy, mutilated
democracy and liberal democracy depending upon time, constellation of forces and
structural peculiarities of a country or region involved.
Primarily, "The Lunatic" is a revolt against Nepal’s post
upheaval setting of the 1950s: the uneasy transition, the mockery of democracy, the extent
of human degeneration in the name of upholding new values and righteousness,
misinformation by leaders and newspapers alike, ruthless exploitation of people’s
rights and economic plunder. In totality, a "functional anarchy."
Look at the strumpet-tongues
advancing of shameless leadership!
At the breaking of the backbones of
the people’s rights!
When the sparrow-headed bold
prints of black lies on the papers,
Challenge the hero in me called
Reason,
With conspiracy false,
Then redden hot my cheeks, my
friend,
And their colour is up.
when the unsophisticated folk quaff
off black poison with their ears
Taking it for ambrosia,
And that before my eyes, my friend,
Then every hair rises on end,
Like the serpent-tresses of the
Gorgons,
All this seems to make the poet mad while carrying on in a disoriented type
of sensibility. The situation then seems to be similar to what we are experiencing now in
a changed endemic social crisis precipitated by a mutilated democracy harbouring greed,
corruption and betrayal. This poem perhaps accentuates the political revolution within the
poet himself for far-reaching social changes. The political change of 1951 was decapitated
to uphold the dignity and the aspirations it carried.
When I see the tiger pouncing upon
the innocent deer,
Or the big fish after the smaller ones,
Then even into my corroded bones,
my friend,
The terrible strength of the soul of
Dadhichi—the sage,
Enters and seeks utterance.
The form of human alienation that the poet is able to manifest through
lyrical interludes is superb and, as such, underscores the political undercurrent of his
thinking. He celebrates Rousseau’s ‘ Common Man’ like perhaps in continuity
with the Age of Enlightenment profusely reflected in the 18th century literary
extravaganza.
To him, every human being is equal. And, the moment man refuses to recognize
a human being as a human being, then the anger in him builds up massive pressure to form a
lunatic energy devastating given realities into an unknown realm. To this end, the poet
uses abundantly the time-honoured metaphors and classical allusions.
When man regards a man as no man,
Then gnash my teeth and grind my
jaws, set with the two and thirty teeth,
Like Bhimsen’s teeth, the terror-
striking hero’s,
And then,
Rolling round my fury-red-headed
eyeballs,
With an inscrutable sweep,
I look at this inhuman human world
Like a tongue of fire.
The lyrical output increases with successive increase in the intensity of
this emotion and reaches a point when the poet is almost violently tearing apart what
exists for a new social order.
My breath swells into a storm,
Distorted is my face,
My brain is in a blaze, Like a wild
conflagration.
I am infuriated like a forest fire,
Frenzied, my friend,
The dichotomous relationship that the poet has established between the
lunatic and the normal for the purpose of total defiance seems to be something like
conscious and unconscious classification of the same mind where the conscious mind works
as a two-way transmission of the emotional thrust finally launched through the unconscious
mind. The massive energy needed to level up disparities can be had only when a collective
emotion changes into lunatic energy for the specific purpose of launching the upthrust,
disarming human rationality bordering onto timidity. A battle is won only when you first
win it inside you.
The conflagration, thus, would reduce the existing citadel of exploitation by
the few against the welfare of many into rubble so that a robust infrastructure of a new
social order could be built. But he shows no intention to go further in an effort of
theorizing the process and the type of change involved like the way Karl Marx did. True to
a great poet, he limits himself to the lunatic energy which, in itself, is a revolution.
This is more so because the poet rejects the tradition, both social in terms of setting
and classical in terms of writing, and, thus, derives his spontaneity emanating from
romanticism to express the deep emotions of a rebellious outcast, who has the clear eyed
vision to see life steadily and whole.
(Based on a paper presented at the 13th Annual Conference of Literary
Association of Nepal held recently in Kathmandu)
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