Introduction of the Poem:
While in "Dhauli" Mahapatra deals with a significant historical omission, in "Grandfather" (1983) the disasters of the Orissa famine of 1866 are viewed from a biographical perspective. The poet tries to recreate and re - enact the harrowing experience of his grandfather, Chintamani Mahapatra, who was compelled to convert to Christianity on account of hunger and starvation during the famine. Mahapatra tries to relieve that critical moment by retrieving his grandfather's “yellowed diary” and his asking him many questions. This, too, is a poem about “hunger” and what it might do to its victims. The grandfather died, however, metaphorically as a Hindu. In the end, the poet desperately attempts to know his true identity and sense of belonging in the “social order”.
Critical Summary:
The poet retrieves his grandfather's diary written during the Orissa famine over a hundred years ago. Its pages had become yellow due to the lapse of time and the grandfather had written about his travails and tribulations at that time. The poet tries to listen to the grandfather's “voice” and “cramped cry” as he stumbles upon the diary.
The diary unfolds the untold misery inflicted by the famine. The sun was unduly hot; there were cracks in the barren earth; and there was all - round silence as the grandfather suffered the pangs of hunger and starvation. There was not a single cloud in the sky, nor was there any hope of rain. Famine had devoured the natural laughter of peasants.
The grandfather did not know what to do as the dead, empty trees stood on the banks of the dried - up river. He was unable to drag his famished body, trying to fight drowsiness. He was probably moving stealthily like a jackal in search of food. But the situation was grim.
Did the old grandfather sense the approach of his own death amidst the rustling of tamarind trees? Death stalked all around. Did he hear its cries break out in fits of unnatural laughter as it sought thousands of men, women and children to feed itself upon? What did the treacherous and deceptive laughter of death mean to him?
The poet asks his grandfather how old he was at that time. Of course, he felt hunted and stalked by death like thousands of others in the land. Did he turn a coward when the “real animal”, i.e., hunger, pierced through his bones? He deserted his family (an act of cowardice) as well as his faith (Hinduism). Both were precious possessions, but he buried them deep in the earth as hunger gnawed at his entrails.
The imperishable, insatiable hunger wrecked his body. In such dire circumstances, faith was hardly of any consequence. His rejection of the ancient faith (Hinduism) must have raised qualms of conscience as the grandfather decided to lead a “separate life” when he embraced Christianity. Perhaps, he opted for spiritual death over physical death due to hunger and starvation. The “web” or the instinct for survival forced the grandfather to change his faith.
“The separate life” as a converted Christian at least helped the grandfather to survive in those hard times. No one knew what the old man felt at that time when he embraced Christianity. Now in better times, when the rains are pouring in torrents as if mocking the aridness during the famine more than a hundred years ago, the poet and his son speak of the famine in hushed voices. They hardly mention it although it is deeply etched on their psyche as if on a stone.
There is a great gulf of conscience between the poet and his son, as they think differently. The son is young; he is bright and optimistic. Maybe he wants to return to the glory of the original faith Hinduism. Maybe he thinks of the past when the family broke away from their faith as a great loss to the family. Both the poet and his son look at the past, but they are at a loss. The poet's son looks upon the old man's act as a desertion while the poet views it as a compromise to survive.
There is a new dawn on the horizon, the poet tells his grandfather. The old man could not perhaps visualize it a hundred years ago. His suffering during the famine and his subsequent conversion to Christianity is just an invisible piece of information on the black - board of memory. It has made his progeny survive and grow. He wishes the grandfather were alive to see and know him and his children. This would have not been possible if the old man had not changed his faith.
The move that the grandfather made, the great leap from one faith to another in order to survive, has now become an integral part of the family psyche. They wish they had known more about the grandfather. They also wish to know what it was like to be near one's death and to compromise one's dignity and faith to strike a compromise between faith and hunger.
The grandfather earned his dignity by embracing Christianity, a dangerous move. That was his last, and perhaps, the only chance to survive. But, the poet thinks, it was grossly unfair and “blindly terrifying”. The poet wishes that they had not to wake up with smiles in the middle of some “social order” under which the victims and the converts were provided food and shelter. The poem end on a note of regret as the poet finds himself lost - and torn between the two worlds of Christianity and “the vast and dominant amphitheatre outside with the preponderance of rites and festivals which represented the way of life of our own people.”
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