REKHO MAA DASERE MONE, BARNALI GHOSH DASTIDAR, AKSHAR SANGLAP. 2025 APRIL, PAGE 223, PRICE : RS 380
The book under discussion is a tribute published on the occasion of the one hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the birth of Michael Madhusudan Dutt. It is written by Barnali Ghosh Dastidar, who by profession is a teacher and, at the same time, an established novelist and short story writer. This life narrative has been written on the basis of various source texts on Madhusudan and rare, hard-to-access documents. Composed in eighteen sections, it is a novelistic biography of this brilliant, short-lived genius. For a Bengali nation that often hesitates and fears breaking rigid orthodoxies, this book stands as a luminous example of how a nineteenth-century Bengali poet gathered infinite courage and shattered prevailing traditions into pieces.
Michael Madhusudan Dutt is not widely read today. It is well known that unless compelled by obligation, few people read Madhusudan. Yet there is no doubt that it was Madhusudan Dutt who infused life into Bengali literature and Bengali poetry. Poet Mohitlal Majumdar remarked that because he bore the name “Michael,” Madhusudan was somewhat marginalized within his own society, yet paradoxically it is by the name Michael that he is widely admired in Bengali society. Among his relatives and close friends he was “Madhu,” while to the outside world he was “Michael.” Contemporary Bengali society, owing to his conversion to Christianity, kept him somewhat ostracized. In the epitaph that he himself composed, he gave primacy to his own name, Madhusudan. In a poet’s consciousness, this was the identity he chose to proclaim.
Mahira padē mahānidrābr̥ta
datta kulōdbhaba kabi śrī madhusūdana.
Yaśōrē sāgaradām̐ṛi kabatakṣa tīrē
janmabhūmi janmadātā datta mahāmati
rājanārāẏaṇa nāmē, jananī jāhnabī.
This epitaph, indeed, constitutes his complete and true identity. One will scarcely find such a declaration on the tombstone of any other poet. Such a gesture was possible only for Madhusudan. On his grave, the poet wished to inscribe that he was a Bengali and that his name was Madhusudan, so that no one might forget his birthplace or his paternal lineage. This sense of Bengality is scattered everywhere in Madhusudan’s poetry. The revival of Bengali poetry that begins with Madhusudan arguably reaches its culmination with Rabindranath. The ideals of the European Renaissance were first embraced, as a way of life, by Raja Rammohan Roy; as a poet, Madhusudan was the first to adopt those ideals. Rammohan was the first man of modern Bengal, and Madhusudan was its first poet. Because Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay truly understood Madhusudan, he rightly wrote that after Jayadeva comes Sri Madhusudan. He further observed that Bengal has no shortage of memorable figures, and just as names such as Raghunandan, Jagannath, Gadadhar, Vidyapati, Chandidas, Govindadas, Bharatchandra, and Rammohan are invoked for enlivening Bengali literature, so too can Madhusudan’s name be placed alongside theirs. In his life, Madhusudan earned large sums of money and squandered them just as freely. He was a man whom some contemporaries hated, some pitied, but none could ignore or deny. Though lacking an inherited family tradition, Madhusudan succeeded in forging a distinct personality entirely of his own.
Regarding the formation of Madhusudan’s resolute personality, it is known that when he enrolled at Hindu College in Calcutta, Derozio was no longer teaching there, yet his influence among the students remained powerful. Madhusudan came into contact with the Derozian students of Hindu College, steeped in rationalism and critical reasoning. Possibly from them he learned to deny even parents in the pursuit of truth and to remain faithful to one’s ideals. In that era, many eminent figures such as Krishnamohan Bandopadhyay, Rasik Krishna Mallick, Dakshinaranjan Mukhopadhyay, and Ramgopal Ghosh took bold decisions in life in defense of their beliefs and ideals—decisions that ordinary people neither take nor can take. Although Michael, unlike them, did not oppose family and society to uphold beliefs on social issues, his truth lay primarily in poetry and in individual autonomy. For that, he did not fear sacrificing a life of immediate comfort. It can be stated without doubt that Hindu College played an immense role in shaping Madhusudan’s mind. Under the influence of teachers like Richardson and through their teaching, his love for literature was born. Not only that, during his time at Hindu College he became a scholar-poet in the tradition of Milton. The first foundations of his erudition and intellectual brilliance were laid at Hindu College. Another major gain for Madhusudan from Hindu College was friendship. Though he could not mingle with everyone, with those with whom he formed bonds, he maintained lifelong friendships. Among his notable friends were Bhudeb Mukhopadhyay and Gourdas Basak. However, after Madhusudan’s conversion to Christianity, Bhudeb was deeply hurt, and their relationship somewhat cooled.
Many Bengalis attempt to belittle the genius of this exceptional talent by focusing on Madhusudan’s drinking. Some have tried to suggest that his drinking became almost legendary, though there is considerable exaggeration in such claims. In the nineteenth century, many prominent Bengalis were addicted to alcohol. For many, drinking was seen as a symbol of liberalism, much like Western modes of thought. Although Rajnarayan Basu later became a patron of temperance movements, he had been a heavy drinker since his days at Hindu College. Raja Rammohan Roy himself, the founder of the Brahmo movement, drank alcohol daily in moderation. Devendranath Tagore, though not yet known as “Maharshi” in the 1840s, had begun to promote Brahmo values with religious enthusiasm and ritual seriousness, and he too drank regularly. Many famous figures of the time died prematurely due to excessive drinking, among them Harish Mukherjee, Kishori Chand Mitra, Kaliprasanna Singha, Rasik Krishna Mallick, Ramgopal Ghosh, and Ishwar Chandra Singha.
Madhusudan’s favorite poet was Byron. Despite this admiration, he never accepted the poet’s sexual promiscuity. Though he suffered notoriety in his own time for drinking and other vices, he was particularly strict in matters of sexual conduct. In nineteenth-century Calcutta, visiting courtesans or keeping mistresses was not considered a serious offense; rather, such practices were socially accepted among the educated classes. Madhusudan not only despised these practices, he regarded any loveless sexual act as a crime.
Michael’s most outstanding creation was Meghnad Badh Kavya, first published in 1861. Such was the quality of this work that it traveled from the homes of the middle class into the households of ordinary people. Meghnad Badh represents the true climax of Michael’s literary life. It may even be said that the disciplined pursuit of poetic fame he had begun in his youth found fulfillment in Meghnad. Michael repeatedly chose mythological narratives for his creations, which might suggest a desire to return to antiquity. Yet his sensibility was entirely different from the ancient world. It was not merely a temptation to retell myths in new language and meter or in a different style; rather, as an avid reader of classical literature, he perceived beauty within mythological stories and used them to express modern humanistic values. The scholars of the fourteenth-century Renaissance studied ancient Greek and Latin literature not to return to antiquity, but to reinterpret those texts in order to express and establish modern human values.
In Meghnad Badh Kavya, he planned to write a new Ramayana, where Ravana, not Rama, appears as the hero—something unimaginable for a Hindu poet of that era. One may ask where he derived such an idea. From early youth, his mind had been nurtured by Western liberal thought and literature. He learned to think independently, setting aside traditional frameworks. Even so, it is doubtful whether he could have conceived Rama and Ravana in such iconoclastic forms without the experience of religious conversion. There is little doubt that becoming a Christian and internalizing Western values made this audacious endeavor easier for him.
It must be noted that Michael not only abandoned his ancestral religion and society, he was not fully accepted into Christian society either. As a result, he could not wholly belong to any single community. He was neither Hindu nor fully Christian; what he became was a secular, non-sectarian human being. His constant companionship with world literature endowed him with a generosity of spirit that enabled him to see all characters—Ravana, Meghnad, Birbahu, as well as Rama, Lakshmana, and Sita—as human beings. This pure humanistic vision made possible his new interpretation of the Ramayana.
Madhusudan was a man who, in his lifetime, attained neither wealth, nor fame, nor honor. Such irony is rarely seen in human life. He earned money, but never enough; he gained fame, but never to the extent he hoped; and he never received the respect he deserved. He aspired to earn millions, but did not reach even thousands. He dreamed of becoming a universally acclaimed English poet, but became a sparsely praised Bengali poet. He hoped for social prestige and power, yet remained socially ostracized. He could not live well in his lifetime, but in death he became immortal. His worldview bore the dialectical influence of Greek fatalism and human will. Thus, he embraced the emotional truth of Greek tragedy while also admiring the rebellious independence and dignity of Satan in Paradise Lost. For him, the magnificent defeat and noble death of the rebel were preferable to the calm, secure life of the obedient.
In the novel under discussion, Barnali has presented the life of this great poet with considerable skill in a straightforward, lucid prose. Once begun, the book can be read in a single breath—and therein lies its greatness.
Reference
Golam Murshid- Ashar Cholone Bhuli, Ananda Publishers.
Jogendranath Basu-Michael Madhusudan Datta-r jiban chorit. Dey’s Publishing.
Mohitlal Majumdar- Kobi Sree Madhusudan. Banga Bharati, Kolkata, 1354 Bangabda.
Pramatha Nath Bishi- Michael Madhusudan Datta. Mitra o Ghosh, 1364 Bangabda
Adhyapak Suresh Chandra Maitra- Michael Madhusudan Datta: Jiban O Sahitya. Bangla Bazar, Dhaka, 1377 Bangabda.
Nagendra Nath Som- Madhusmriti. Gurudas Chattopadhyay & Sons, 1327 Bangabda
Dainik Statesman, 06.12.2025
Alexander Riddiford- Madly after Muses: Bengali Poet Michael Madhusudan Dutta and his Reception of the Greeco-Roman Classics. Oxford 2013.
Parthasarathi Chowdhury
Associate Prof (RETD)
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