Originally written in Bengali 2010, English translation by Binoy Barman. Cover art by Marta Abbott, AS ABOVE, SO BELOW / SUCH THE SUN, SUCH THE MOON.
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When it comes to Bengali literature, there is no limit to our inferiority complex. For this reason, we do not find confidence in rightly claiming higher genius in our literary works until it is acknowledged by critics working in other languages. Our critical literature is so crippled and dwarfed that the idea of greatness has almost been lost from Bengali literature. Hence Jibananda Das and Manik Bandyopadhyay remained neglected in their times. We can now understand, many years after their death, that they are comparable to any great writers of the world.
And we understand it not with our own ability but from the words of a western scholar. Both Manik and Marquez have now become the center of intense discussion. There have already been a lot of institutional and non-institutional discussions on Manik Bandyopadhyay , most prominent being the works of Ahmed Safa and Abu Hena Mostafa Kamal. Both of them concentrated on the novel Padmanodir Majhi (The Boatman of the River Padma), revealing its higher artistic value with great insights.
But it is possible to look at Manik’s novel from various other perspectives. We may compare it with the noble works of world literature and find similarities and dissimilarities. We have been indifferent to the probable results of a comparative study concerning Manik. But it should be acknowledged that the expansion and enrichment of meaning of any literature happens when it is studied in comparison with the literature of other languages. In Saint Boves’ terms, it is enlargement of text.
Bengali readers are more or less familiar with Cien Años de Soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude) by Gabriel Garcia Marquez via English or Bengali translations. We want to keep the two writers of two horizons and two languages side by side and find out the similarities and dissimilarities in them.
Marquez (6 March 1927-17 April 2014) lived much longer than Manik (19 May 1908-3 December 1956). The first similarity that comes to our notice is that both of them were inspired by left political ideologies. Manik went through a severe financial constraint from 1952 to death. On the other hand, for Marquez, financial suffering hit his life when the Colombian dictator shut down El Spectador newspaper in 1954 where he was working. He spent three years in Paris in pinching poverty and badly struggled to survive. In the same span of time, one succumbed to death while the other moved towards affluence, overcoming crisis.
Besides this temporal resemblance, another striking similarity is noticed in their two distinguished works. Marquez’s Cien Años de Soledad and Manik’s Padmanodir Majhi have some common tendencies as well as enormous divergences. We will explore them in this essay.
The handy information regarding Padmanodir Majhi is that it was published on 28 May 1936. Later its translated version (by Hirendranath Mukherjee) was published in May 1948 as Boatman of the Padma from Kutub Publishers of Mumbai. On the other hand, Cien Años de Soledad was published in May 1967 from Editorial Sudamericana of Buenos Aires. Despite the distance in time, it is surprising that the cover of the book Cien Años de Soledad in its first impression contained the image of a boat (Spanish galeon) in the midst of woods. The cover image of Padmanodir Majhi has almost always contained a boat. In both the novels, a river flows by the place where people live. The river is just beside the village in Padmanodir Majhi while it is near Macondo in Cien Años de Soledad: “Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses, built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs.” (Macondo era entonces una aldea de veinte casas de barro y coñabrava construidas a la orilla de un rio de aguas diafanas que se precipitaban por un lecho de piedras pulidas, blanca y enormes como huevos prehistoricos.–Cien Años de Soledad, G. M. Marquez, Alfaguara, España, 2007, P-9). A couple of minor similarities, the places are called Macondo and Moinadwip, both starting with M sound; the protagonists are named Hossain (Mia) and Jose (Arcadio Buendia), both starting with H sound. Though these similarities seem accidental and insignificant, they may take us into the depths of artistic tendencies revealing an internal unity.
If we carefully analyze characters, plots, perspectives, themes and narrative techniques, we would be able to identify some points of unity between the two novels. Mario Vargas Llosa termed Cien Años de Soledad a ‘Novela total’, because this ambitious work “competes with reality with a sense of equality, giving it an image of qualitatively equivalent vitality, vastness and complexity” (Compiten con la Realidad real de Igual a Igual, enterantandole una imagen de una vitalidad, vastedad y complicidad cualitativamente equivalentes) where “tradition and modernity, locality and universality, imagination and reality” (tradicional y moderna, localista y universal, imaginaria y realista) “…individual and collective, legend and history, mundane and mythical” (…el individual y el colectivo, el ligendario y el historico, el cotidiano y el mitico) have been unified (Cien Años de Soledad, G. M. Marquez, Edicion commemorativa, Real Academia Espanola, 2007. P-XXV Y XXVI). We may find these apparently contradictory elements presented with a logical conviction in the 471 pages long novel narrating the story of seven generations. Supernatural, mystery and compositional mastery have made this novel a great literary art. Marquez has, as if, tried to capture the entirety of happenings in worldly lives. The book has been the artistic form of all human expressions.
On the other hand, Padmanodir Majhi is not so extensive in terms of time and plot. It is not so compact with exciting events, nor is it crowded with so many characters. But tradition and modernity, locality and universality, imagination and reality, individual and collective, legend and history – all these are also present in this novel, making it high literary art. Here ‘tradition’ is represented by Ketupur whereas ‘modernity’ is represented by Moinadwip. People in Ketupur are ‘collective’ and Hossain Mia is an ‘individual’ who dreams of modern livelihood. Again, this ‘individual’ has ‘polyphonic’ features. Ketupur may be ‘local’ but this person attempted to transform Moinadwip into a place of ‘universal’ living with a touch of historical and scientific knowledge. “And so the Buendias found a precarious Arcadia in jungles of Colombia, where not only the virtues of the Golden Age of the past are acclaimed but also those of the coming Utopia of Progress.” (Myself with Others, Carlos Fuentes, Farrar, Straus & Giroux,1988, p.184). Is Manik’s Moinadwip not an Arcadia, where a prehistoric maiden past surrounded by sea demonstrates European progressive utopia through Hossain Mia? “Hossain Mia is the Bengali edition of Columbus and Captain Cook who launched naval expeditions from Europe to America up to polar regions by dint of the knowledge of mechanics and natural sciences” (Bangali Musolmaner Mon, Ahmed Safa, Khan Brothers and Company, 2009, p. 42).
It is said, and it is true, that Cien Años de Soledad may be read as Bible, myth or history, or it may be read simply as a narrative, because the novel contains all these features in different layers of its vast body. “Garcia Marquez embodies this in an edenic couple, Jose Arcadio has shown it (Bible) through the Arcadio and Ursula, pilgrims who have fled the original world of their sin and their fear to found a Second Paradise in Macondo.” (Myself with Others, Carlos Fuentes, Farrar,Straus & Giroux, 1988, p. 193). That means, Marquez has told the story of Adam and Eve. And the story also captures the history of the Europeans who discovered their new world (Nuevo mundo) America after abandoning their old haven of vices. Marquez’s Macondo is a miniature of that big America. This thing may not be very clear in Padmanodir Majhi, but we may discover a slight parallel in it. Kuber and Kopila go to Moinadwip to escape from their sin or offense in heaven Ketupur, which is in Europe historical sense. Like Marquez, Manik also has mixed history with myth. We may find a parallel of events in another place also. In Cien two main characters Arcadio and Ursula, were locked in marriage despite belonging to the same bloodline. Because of this relation, it was apprehended that one of their offspring will be born with pig’s tail in future. Fearing the birth of a pig-tailed baby, they refrained from copulation for a long time, though one day it happened. They committed this willingly, thinking that “the world has to be saved with any kind of baby”. In Padmanodir Majhi, such kind of slanderous relation takes place on a different level, but much more daringly. Here young Enayet establishes an illicit relation with the young wife of old Basir, and it is approved by Hossain Mia. Because Moinadwip has to be filled with humans for the sustenance of his dream place. Thus both the writers have arrived at the same point of perception transcending time, culture, language and geographic distance.
An affinity between Macondo and Moinadwip is that they are isolated. Macondo is situated in a place of heavenly isolation. Marquez has created an atmosphere of antiquity, describing its remoteness with the mythical-poetic language of Genesis. Since Moinadwip is an island, it is surrounded by sea, separated from human society and civilization, as isolated as Macondo. The two isolated communities keep contact with the mainstream outer world through Melquíades and Hossain Mia. Having an advanced vision of life, “Hossain would like to create a new human civilization by dint of his own intelligence and wisdom alone” (Bangali Musolmaner Mon, Ahmad Safa, Khan Brothers, April 2009, p. 42). Jose Arcadio is also full of aspirations like Hossain Mia. He is desperate to uplift the life-standards of the whole family with the amenities of advanced sciences (e.g. magnet, glass) collected through Melquiades from the outer world. In the beginning of the novel, we will see that he gets preoccupied with Portuguese map, naval gadgets, astrolab, compass and sextant received from Melquíades. After a long study with these objects, he gets to know about the motion of stars, measurement of time and paths of navigation. This Jose is, as if, most reliable notation of distant blood and impulse of another Hossain Mia in another place. In the language of Manik, “That Hossain was a skilled navigator could be understood from his operating boat in the vast sea. He sat with a compass in front of him and kept the rudder in his hand, and six boatmen started to row” (Manik Bandyopadhyay Rochonasomogro, second volume, Pashchimbanga Bangla Academy, 20 May 1998, p. 71). Hossain Mia at times appears as the summation of Jose Arcadio and Melquíades, or in an opposite way, Jose Arcadio and Melquíades are the distorted forms of Hossain Mia.
Ahamad Safa reminds us of the fact that “Mr. Manik has created Hossain Mia as a compressed form of multiple stages of man’s historical experiences” (ibid, p. 43).
On the other hand, Vargas Llosa and Fuentes have repeatedly reminded us of the fact that Cien Años de Soledad can be read in a myriad of ways. It may be read as Biblical myth as it is possible to read as the dream and reality of the history and heritage of European and American continents. In the novel we may find a subdued form of how European aspirations were materialized through colonial expansion. In Padmanodir Majhi, if we consider Ketupur as Europe, Moinadwip would be America. And Hossain Mia has the features of Cristobal Colon or Fernando de Magallanes. Such kind of consideration is not far-fetched and we may understand by providing an example. In the middle of the novel we see that Hossain Mia is going to Moinadwip from Ketupur for the first time with Kuber. Descriptions of this journey are expressed through phrases like: “finding the way of journey looking at the map”, “rowing boat to south-east direction in 42 degree angle”, “keeping a compass in front and holding the rudder”. Then, “It is doubtful whether the location of the boat can be understood during the whole day. They have to wait for night. When stars appear at night, Hossain Mia looks at the sky through his strange tool and understands how far and where Dhonmanik Dwip (Isle of Dhonmanik) is.” The border-crossing character of Hossain Mia, hidden in the deep shadow of Cristobal Colon or Fernando de Magallanes, gets clear when Manik says, “Hossain can now travel around the world running big ships.” If we exclude the strange-looking animals of the new world, this description coincides with that of Antonio Pigafetta.
Melquíades is one of the main characters in Cien Años de Soledad. He mirrors the soul of Hossain Mia. Hossain Mia cherishes all ideas of building an advanced habitation based on the knowledge of science, technology and governance. On the other hand, all objects of the civilized world which are found in Macondo have been brought via Melquíades.
In Padmanodir Majhi we see that Hossain Mia helps the inhabitants of Ketupur in different ways. Though he has necessary contact with a few people in the upper class, he mainly lives with the lower-class fishermen. Melquíades’ character constitution is somewhat like Hossain Mia’s. We already know he helps Jose Arcadio with various modern objects. Even when the people of Macondo suffer from sleeplessness, he cures them with a liquid antidote. After he died in Singapore in an epidemic, he could not bear the loneliness of death and so he came back to live with the Buendia family. Just as the destiny of Macondo depends on the Melquíades to a large extent, the destiny of Ketupur and Moinadwip depends on Hossain Mia.
Though there are so many characters in Cien Años de Soledad spread across seven generations, none is so splendid in wisdom, humanity and creativity like Hossain Mia. We may witness an amalgamation of multiple characters in Hossain Mia. Clarity of thought regarding the state, profound knowledge of technology and creativity have made him a robust character that we do not find in Cien. Hossain’s qualities may be sporadically observed in different characters there. Nevertheless, Cien has attained an epic dimension by virtue of its vast plot, full of ups and downs, often driven by destiny. One character who most conspicuously attains epic heights is Colonel Aureliano Buendia in Cien. Still he lacks qualities possessed by Hossain such as self-control, calmness, intelligence, firmness and staunch determination. Aureliano is like violent waves but Hossain is calm though adventurous, vibrant and determined.
It has been mentioned earlier that reality and imagination have been marvelously combined in Cien. Did the same thing happen in Padmanodir Majhi? The answer is both yes and no. Yes, because the combination did not happen in the narrative but in the character of Hossain Mia. He is a mixture of history, reality and imagination. Ahmad Safa has rightly stated: “Hossain has been presented as the symbol of experiences collected in time… hence he appears in familiar attire but there is no reality in his character.” No, because the other characters in the novel and narration are full of reality. Like Cien, it is real and fantasy at the same time, touching on delusion and humor. Padmanodir Majhi has rather embraced imagination in its plot and plot structure.
Cien chronicles the saga of a family (later a community) beset in an almost prehistoric environment which incorporates myth and colonial history (Francis Drake has been mentioned directly). As the narrative moves on, it meets contemporary political and social phenomena: the strike against the banana company, the killing of the strikers and the throwing their dead bodies into the sea. It thus projects not only the tales of Colombia but also the whole Latin America, albeit obliquely. It even goes beyond Latin America with its political meaning; it symbolizes the loneliness of the third world. The lack of unity is the cause of this loneliness. And the lack of unity comes from lovelessness, which ultimately transforms the entire habitation into a ghostly town.
Marquez has attempted to drive human struggle for survival and existence towards fulfillment throughout his novel. Despite all struggles, his attitude has been tragic in an epic sense; it is the postmodern edition of tragic consciousness. It is postmodern because it contains a narrative style which has a comical tendency, a feature of postmodernism.
Manik is just the opposite in his Padmanodir Majhi. Opposite in the sense that his work is not representative of tragic consciousness. It was not possible for him to be so. If he attempted to do that, he could not give Hossain’s character proper shape. The goal that he aspired to achieve through the novel would not be possible via tragic characterization. For that reason, the character and characteristics must have been altered.
It is true that Cien has a much broader plot than Padmanodir Majhi. It holds many things together, having more branches of events, flowing dynamically through illusory brightness. No, Padmanodir Majhi does not have this dynamism. These two works are different in artistic form. With its spectacular characteristics, Cien has challenged the total canon of European fiction. Apart from magic realism and fantasy, its pages are full of comical scenes in the form of irony, humor and jokes in conjunction with tragedy, features that are not so characteristic of Eurocentric novels. And all his rustic expressions have thrown a challenge to the Western rationalist cultural heritage. He has thus introduced a new kind of artistic form in Cien whileManik did not do so. Marquez is branded as postmodern for his art while Manik adhered to the European art form. Manik concentrated on a new life pattern rather than new art.
Marquez got a favorable environment for embarking on a new and complex artistic path while Manik did not get such favor. If in the Spanish language the novel started with Don Quixote, then we have to accept that Spanish American fiction is more than 400 years old because Don Quixote was published in 1605. The canon has been enriched by many modern fiction writers such as Benito Perez Galdos, Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, Romulo Gallegos, Jose Maria Arguedas, Juan Rulfo, Miguel Angel Asturias, Alejo Carpentier, Jorge Luis Borges, Juan Carlos Onetti, Jose Lezama Lima, and Macedonio Fernandez. The variety and vastness of fiction have undoubtedly inspired Marquez in breaking new ground. This rich treasure of fictional heritage has constituted his writer’s entity consciously or unconsciously. Manik, on the other hand, only had a short tradition of about 100 years in front of him, that tradition mainly having been created by Bankim and Tagore. However, even Bankim and Tagore did not mark any big turning points in fiction. They are significant because they were pioneers. Unlike Cervantes, Carpentier, Rulfo, Asturias or Macedonio Fernandez, they could not adopt any innovations in the writing styles of fiction. Manik did not get a start on any fertile land as Marquez did. Manik sowed the seed of his genius in almost an empty land, and all alone. If seen from the narrow perspective of tradition, Manik’s contribution would be considered gigantic.
But it is clear that Padmanodir Majhi could not come close to Cien’s artistic height. This shortcoming has, however, been compensated by two other elements: religion and love. Most Latin American writers, from Neruda to Marquez, had a commitment to society and people, and Manik has tried to fulfill that commitment in Padmanodir Majhi.
In a detailed discussion on Marquez, Salman Rushdie explained the importance of religion in the following words:
In both places, Latin America and South Asia, there was and still is a conflict between the rich and poor … and in both places religion is of great importance, and God is alive, and so, unfortunately, are the godly. (Languages of Truth, Salman Rushdie, Penguin, 2021, P-128)
That is, in Latin America and South Asia, where the rich and the poor live side by side, God and religion are important. People have to lead their life with the help of those concepts. Before Manik, Bankim also tried to tackle the problem with creating a kingdom of imagination, but his failure is obvious in the novel Sitaram. Where Bankim failed, Manik was successful, with a secular position in Padmanodir Majhi. For Manik and Marquez, we should look at the differences in situation. Religious sensitivity is not that important in the West or Latin America as it is in India, even today. In this era of rising fanaticism, religion is a very sensitive issue, but it is not so in Marquez’s society where a comment against religion might not bring danger for the writer. In Cien religion has been mocked in a subtle way. To save from the pandemic of dementia, the words “God exists” were hung at the start of main road of Macondo. Bankim resolved the problem of religious sensitivity with the sword of religion which cut whole people into divisions. Going away from Bankim and Marquez, Manik created a kingdom of imagination where the appeal of religion diminishes.
- “However different religions may be, there is little difference in leading their life. All of them equally go through a big impiety- poverty.” (p. 31, ibid)
- “What harm if a Hindu eats food cooked by a Muslim? There may be difference in religious practice among the people in Bhanga village who dig soil for livelihood, the boatmen of the Padma have the single and same religion.” (p. 68, ibid)
- Hossain Mia says, “Where will we get a Mullah in Moinadwip? Aziz Hasan Saheb of Rajbari says, “If there are a hundred Muslims and a mosque but no land for Hindus, then he will live here”. No, not possible. Where will I get people if Hindus are excluded? Hindus, and no mosque. No mosque. If Muslims are given a mosque, Hindus must be given an idol house. No, I will not allow this in my island.” (p. 70, ibid)
Religion came up in Marquez’s Cien because: “This represents a desperate attempt to preserve the old values which gave life a meaning to cling to a coherent vision of an ordered world but elusive, shifting reality slips away from them as they forget the written world.” (Landmarks in the modern Latin American Fiction, Edited by Philip Swanson, Routledge, 1990, p. 158)।
As reality is not elusive or shifting in Padmanodir Majhi unlike Cien, there is no scope of subtle mockery (‘God exists’). This issue is very important for Manik. A liberal order without caste and creed is a dire necessity for the Indian subcontinent. While growing up, Manik might have witnessed the use of religion in dividing a population and land as well as mistreatment of religious elements in the hand of Bankim. So Manik took a secular position for the sake of people’s unity. There was no alternative to establishing Moinadwip going beyond the narrowness of class, caste and creed of India. Just because of cultural difference, we find two different attitudes of two writers towards religion.
At the end of Cien, Macondo becomes a ghostly settlement. “Macondo was already a fearful whirlwind of dust and rubble being spun about by the wrath of the biblical hurricane.” (Macondo era ya un pavoroso remolino de polvo y escombres centrifugado por la colera del huracan Biblico. —Cien Anos de Soledad, Alfaguara, España, 2007, p. 470) Thirty-two battles could not save Macondo because they were not inspired by ideals. Love relations could not yield integrity, and integrity could not fulfill the desire of imagined kingdom, rather they brought immense solitude. Two characters of the novel Aureliano and Amaranta Ursula “get detained in a house of loneliness and love and love-driven solitude where it is impossible to sleep because of bites of red ants.” (Recluidos por la soledad y el amor y por la soledad del amor en una casa donde era casi imposible dormir por el estrendo de las hormigas coloradas, La nueva novela hispanoamericana, Carlos Fuentes, Mexico 1980, pp. 61-62)’
Manik has tried to build the foundation of love carefully just from the beginning in order to make the project of Moinadwip successful. If Moinadwip is a symbol of a successful populace, then love is an elemental force there embodied by the relationship between Kopila and Kuber. In the last page of the novel, when Hossain’s huge boat is about to set off for Moinadwip, then:
“He (Kuber) sat inside the shade of the boat. A voice called him, “Will you take me with you boatman?” “Yes, let Kopila come with us. Kuber will not be able to cross such a distance alone.” (Manik Bandyopadhyayer Rochonasomogro, second volume, Manik Bandyopadhyay, Pashchimbanga Bangla Academy, 20 May, 1998, Kolkata, p. 97)
Lovelessness led to a lack of integrity and a lack of integrity brought disaster for the people of Macondo. It reminds us of the fact that love is an essential element for the success of a population full of humanistic aspiration as well as for a welfare state.
We may recall the Nobel speech given by Marquez where he said, “[…] where no one will be able to decide for others how they die, where love will prove true and happiness be possible, and where the races condemned to one hundred years of solitude will have, at last and forever, a second opportunity on earth.” (Gabriel García Márquez Nobel Lecture)
Manik in his novel foreshadowed Marquez’s kingdom of imagination but it remained unfulfilled in Marquez’s own account. What Marquez desired in reality, Manik fulfilled much earlier, embodied in a different name, Moinadwip. In Padmanodir Majhi, Manik Bandyopadhyay, a great novelist of Bangla language, created a ‘second opportunity’ for the kingdom of imagination through an integrity of love between Kuber and Kopila about eight decades ago.
Razu Alauddin is a Bangladeshi poet, essayist, and translator. His poems and essays have been translated into English, Spanish, Italian, and Swedish. In 2019, his collection of Bangla poems came out in Ecuador as Secretamente he dibujado el mapa del deseo (Secretly have I Drawn the Map of Desire) in María Helena Barrera-Agarwal’s Spanish translation. Alauddin originally translates from Spanish and his translations include essays and stories by Jorge Luis Borges, interviews and autobiography of Borges, and poems by Georg Trakl, C.P. Cavafy, and Ted Hughes, among others. Currently, he oversees the editorial and opinion section at bdnews24.
Professor Dr. Binoy Barman is an academic, researcher, translator and writer, residing in Dhaka, Bangladesh. He was born in Narayanganj district of Bangladesh on January 01, 1971. He works as a Professor of English at Daffodil International University and also the Executive Editor of DIU Journal of Humanities and Social Sciences. He used to be the Head of English Department and the Director of Daffodil Institute of Language (DIL). He did his MA in English and MPhil and PhD in Linguistics from the University of Dhaka. More than 20 research articles written by him have been published in reputed national and international journals, a few being Scopus-indexed. He has got more than 40 books, academic and creative, to his credit. He took part in many seminars and conferences around the world, presenting papers and delivering keynote speeches, and also organized workshops, seminars and conferences in his institution. In pursuit of his creativity, he writes prose and poetry, both in English and Bangla, for adults and children alike. His creative pieces of writing published in popular newspapers and magazines number nearly 200 pertaining to literary, social and political issues. He has translated several books from English to Bangla and vice versa. He is the recipient of UNICEF Meena Media Award and the Daily Star Celebrating Life Award, among others.