Critical Summary:
Here we have an extract from Mahapatra's long poem Relationship. The poem consists of many sections of which only one has here been supplied by the anthologist. Mahapatra intended this long poem to be a kind of epic based on the ancient history of Orissa to which he belongs by birth, by breeding, and by virtue of his having settled there (in the city of Cuttack) on a permanent basis. This section begins with the protagonist's making a reference to his mother's death, and to the places where he spent his years of childhood. His memories of those places now seem remote; and they have, in fact, vanished just as a rabbit vanishes from the hands of a magician who is giving a demonstration of his professional skill to an audience. Besides, the memories of the past which come to the protagonist are not of a pleasant kind. For instance, in the context of one of the memories he mentions “loneliness” and “hurt” (meaning mental distress), and he also gives us a picture of the tears of the “wounded pools of our living”.
The protagonist then looks at the sky and finds that the star having the name of Orion has shifted its position though its movement in the sky is so of the movement of The protagonist then looks at the sky and finds that the star having the name of Orion has shifted its position though its movement in the sky is so slow as to be imperceptible. He indicates the slowness of the movement of that star by saying that it is crawling like a spider. Then, returning to the earth, the protagonist mentions the slaughter and the massacre which had taken place long, long ago and which can never be forgotten by the people of this country. The happenings of the past naturally come back to an Indian or to an Orissan (or Oriya). In fact, so many memories come back to a man's mind sometimes that he does not know what he should do with them and how he should react to them. The protagonist feels that the memories, which have crowded into his mind, are like voices which have come to him from some other world, perhaps from the stars in the sky. The memories are of a painful nature; and the world seems to be a place where suffering is the rule rather than the exception.
The protagonist then says that his father is getting older and older, and that he is being overtaken by extreme old age at a fast pace. More memories come to the protagonist; and now he feels that these memories in his brain are in a state of tumult or agitation like rats running to and fro in a dark room and gnawing at rotten paper because they can find nothing to eat to satisfy their hunger.
Finally the protagonist thinks of the furry skin of a sheep belonging to his old village. Having got wet because of the rain, the skin had acquired certain lustre. The sight of that wet skin of a sheep reminds the protagonist of the delicate skin of his “gentle” daughter. The stones of the holy temples of Konarka also come to his mind, but are easily dismissed by him from his mind.
A Note on the Poem Relationship
“All the concerns recurring in Mahapatra's earlier individual poems— time and eternity, individual experience and racial memory, stillness and silence— consciousness of alienation and evil— merge in Mahapatra's Relationship which may be regarded as Mahapatra's magnum opus. Relationship is not a poem about the relationship of a man to men in friendship, love, family, or community. It is a poem about the relationship of man to time, of man to land, and of man to generations of men who have passed before him and who will come after him. Finally, this is a poem about the relationship of man to his self and of man to his soul. In this poem, personal experience, racial consciousness, and myth of the land intertwine with each other. In this long poem consisting of twelve sections , the mood swings, with a wave - like motion, between serenity and despair, between peace and frustration, and between stillness and disturbance. There is continuous inter - action between the inner landscape and the outer landscape (which is Orissa). The ruins of Konark and Puri, the river Daya where King Asoka got himself converted to Buddhism after the blood - bath of a Pyrrhic victory, are eloquent and are participants in the racial experience of the poet Rock and water, sun and rains, moonlight and darkness are recurring motifs in the poem and carry the theme forward in a web - like association.”
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