“Relationship” which won Mahapatra the prestigious Sahitya Akademi Award in 1981 is his magnum opus based on the ancient history of Orissa to which he belongs. A. N. Dwivedi observes: “Indubitably it is a great work which explores with remarkable symphonic effects his unbreakable relationship with rich religion, culture, rituals, traditions and myths of Orissa and, above all, with the primordial shaping influences that Konarka has exercised on him, unfolding the various stages of his own individuality. Resolved into twelve sections, this long poem, a significant corollary of his critical piety and his commendable capacity to confront and interrogate the challenges and deficiencies of all the traditions, rituals and myths that have shaped his psyche, engendering in him a terrible sense of deprivation and defencelessness in the face of the overwhelming presence of the past, is indisputably his profoundly serious attempt at experimental meditation on his origin and his sacred ties with Orissa.”
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| Mahapatra’s Poem, Relationship, Critical Analysis |
“Relationship” has many epic like qualities. It has sublimity both in matter and manner. It depicts the relationship of self to the historical past, rich cultural heritage and its flow with time honoured changes into the present. The elevated subject matter is expressed in a sublime style, characterised by heightened diction and long sentences, highly suggestive and picturesque symbols and images, for example:
“We have come as dreams disguised that finned us down,
artisans of stone
messengers of the spirit,
twelve hundred artless brown flowers in passion
to the night in humble brotherhood,
aerial roots of a centuries old banyan tree,
not taking our lives seriously
for our lives are only of the seeds of dreams
forgetting the cruelties
of ruthless emperors who carved peaceful edicts
of blood - red rock.”
Its other epic like characteristics is introductory announcement of theme, an invocation of the muse, and division into twelve books and sections. But “Relationship” is not an epic which is objective. The poet distances himself away from his material. Like lyric it is in the form of self-expression. It is a narrative of a great legendary event of national history. It is a poetic and dream like effort through which the poet correlates himself with the history and culture of Orissa from which he had been alienated and distanced. It begins with the poet's attempt to understand the myths, rituals, legends and history which are his past and from which Sling he is alienated.
In the opening section of “Relationship” the poet attempts to evaluate the historical past juxtaposing it with the present. It is a rich lattice work studded with historical truths, religious myths and legends intermingled with the present. The first rain of the year transports the poet into the past. He is keenly aware of the historical truth and tries to recreate the unforgettable painful phase of Indian history related with emperor Ashoka's invasion on Kalinga and the ruthless massacre of thousands of Oriyas at Dhauli, near the river Daya. When the mighty conqueror Ashoka saw the river turned red with the blood of the defeated, he underwent a sea - change and carved his famous peaceful edicts on the rock face of posterity. But this change of heart on the part of Ashoka could do no good to the dead. Hence the poet asks in a questioning mood:
“What can ever wash the air of its gashed voices?
It is hard to tell now
what opened the open skies,
how the age - old proud stones
lost their strength and fell
and how the waters of the Daya
stank with the bodies of my ancestors,
my eyes close now
because of the fear that moves my skin:
the invaders walk along the only road they know
that leads to their bloody victories”
The overwhelming memories of “the guilt ridden” past haunt the poet and he bursts into lyrical effusions. “The burnt granite of the fallen Konarka” and the natural phenomena make the poet think “my existence lies in stones.” The poet is in an elegiac mood:
“and yet my existence lies in the stones
which carry my footsteps from one day into another.”
At last the poet, who is in a state of the flux of time while attempting to understand time past, comes to the conclusion that he can overcome alienation and resultant depression by accepting his “origin”:
“I know I can never come alive
if I refuse to consecrate at the altar of my origins
where the hollow horn blows every morning
and its suburban sound picks it way
through the tangled moonlight of your lazy sleep.”
Although the poet cannot forget the overwhelming memories of the guilt ridden past, he is keenly anxious about the drifting lot of younger generations:
“So we would go on
reading the epics in the lamplight,
sucking our mother's dry and drooping breasts
watch the thin moon blend into that darkness
where gigolos and pimps and cocksuckers
jabber excitedly in a language of monstrous flowers.”
Section Four ends with the poet feeling that “now” is the time to satisfy his solitude in a prayer poem which reflects the earth's “lost amplitudes.”
Section Five begins with a vision of the myths of India contained in the temple stones. He interrogates whether renewal can be achieved through dreams. However he learns “the miracle of living” which can only be attained in a dreamlike state and not in confrontation of contemporary realities:
“This sleep is a song
that is heard from all sides continually."
In fact, the poet tries to search for some meaning in existence but the more he searches it, the greater is the sense of loss. He concludes that the past glories cannot be retrieved and our existence can be made meaningful by participation in the totality of creation. The poet wants to know the mystery underlying the myth of Konark in which is captured the unceasing rhythm of life. He accepts the myth and surrenders before it— “those who survive the myth / have slipped past their lives and cannot define their reason.” Deliverance lies in the acceptance of the myth:
“We are delivered by the myth
which exhorts our sleep and our losses,
that wakes us like toys springing out of a box,
opening out humiliating episodes
or dutiful monuments that celebrate
the victories of that darkness over us.”
The unquestioning acceptance of myth leads man to see “from the vast night around him the beauty soar into the sky.” The poem ends with the affirmation of the life force and the harmonious energies of continuing creation as represented by the temple dancers, “the dark daughters”: “In you dance is my elusive birth.” “Relationship” ends with a rhapsody in discovery of the eternal moment of happiness that lies in love of self as well as society and returns to the eloquent silence in which such recognition could be made.