Assistant Professor

English

Saltora Netaji Centenary College

Saltora  West Bengal, India 

Abstract

Jacinta Kerketta’s poems are always representing the tribal life in different dimensions. Nature is the best teacher and human life seems easy in the nature. Jacinta shows in her poem that life is easy in the jungle as human beings learn from nature. The spontaneous and simple life become complex when the natives walked towards the city. And the native at that moment loses the peaceful happy life forever. When a native enters the city to live and tries to hold close to mix with the culture of the city, the city denies accepting that person. City’s hatred always reflects regarding the identity of the people. Domestic animals are the part of rural life. No food or pasture lands are available in city for the cattle. The measureable life of the cattle in the city is narrated by the poet. And in the city human being cruelly kills human being for the materialistic gain and profit. Poet compares life of human being and animal in city and rural settings as well. She tries to show that life is easy and harmonious in nature and becomes complex in the city.

Key words 

Tribe, life, rural, city, jungle, domestic animal.

Objective of the study

The objective of the paper is to make comparative study of tribal life in two different settings of jungle and city. Not only human being, domestic animals like cows and goats lives are also compared in the cities. Only four poems are taken to show the lives of the native as well as the cattle. How the native loses the peaceful simple harmonious life to the journey of city. Cattle are in more sorrowful state.

Methodology

Qualitative method is taken into consideration to study the tribal life and domestic animals towards the journey of city. The anthology Land of the roots of Jacinta Kerketta is the primary source and the many books, articles are the secondary sources of the paper. Analytical procedure is being adopted to discuss the poems of Kerketta in details.

Introduction

Jacinta Kerketta, a tribal poet portrays tribal life and surroundings in her poems. Poems of Kerketta unfold the multiple layers of life in the changing scenario. From the anthology Land of the roots, four poems of the poet are analyzed to define her attitude towards life when man and animals make journey to the city. In the first poem “The Jungle Says”, poet narrates the joyous happy peaceful life of jungle. Regrettably, humble people of the jungle are enchanted and entrapped by the city culture. As a result they lose their peace, happiness and joyous life forever. The poem “In the veins of the city” explores the hatred of the city towards the tribal people who try their best to embrace the city as their own. But city never accepts them as part and parcel and always treats as outsider. Cattle’s sorrowful condition are shown in the poem “The city and the cow” in the cities. Cattle haunt in search of food in the city and gulp garbage as a substitute of grass. Tribes are not alone who suffer in the cities but the animals also. And the last poem “In the history of animals” shows that in the cities human beings have opened the slaughter houses in multidimensional ways to sell the human flesh. The cruelties of man to man have been rhetorically presented through the poem. Poet Kerketta wants to place comparative life of human being and animal in the changing circumstances. The tribes and the animals both live happy and simple easy life in the jungle. When they try to come out from the jungle and make journey towards the city, their lives become measureable and complex to survive.

Native life

Tribal people are living in the jungle or nearby jungle as their livelihood depends on jungle. In the Poem “The Jungle Says” Jacinta Kerketta personifies jungle. Jungle gives lesson as a teacher:

A man of the jungle learns

The art of walking from its meandering trails.

The trees teach him to grow and blossom.

To dance he learns from the rollicking rain.

And songs,

Like mushrooms,

Burst forth naturally, (1 -7)

Walking in the jungle is very difficult for the outsider. But people of the jungle can learn that art of walking in the zigzag paths of the forests since childhood. The trees give lesson to develop in a proper way and teach to bloom like flowers to provide fragrance and make the society a beautiful one. Like the trees every human being need to grow for some purpose of the society and contribute the best to make a decent world. Man of the jungle learns to dance from the rain which brings joy and hope for the vegetation world as well as gets skill at singing from the mushrooms which flourish naturally. So, fragrance of the soil can be smelled in each and every song of the tribes. The poet indicates that a man of the jungle learns everything from nature. So the man of the forest lives life naturally in nature:

The Jungle says

An ocean it can never be,

For in its merging into the ocean

Every river is stripped of its identity.

The jungle alone sustains,

Each with its identity it maintains. (8-13)

Jungle is not like the selfish like ocean and Jungle never be wanted like ocean because ocean absorbs the river and snatches away its identity. But jungle is such a place where jungle gives shelter to everyone and never demands anything. Jungle is more comfortable place on the earth where each element of nature can live own way of self individuality.

A man of the jungle always lives happily in the jungle but the approach of the urban development destroys the peace, harmony and happiness. Poet tries to say that the tribes are happy in the jungle to live their joyous life. But irresistible attractions of the city life destroy their happy life and that happy life of the jungle, tribes would destroy forever by embracing the city culture:

And so, they build roads

Leading out of the Jungle’s cover.

For they know one day,

Following these roads he will be led astray,

And all will be wiped away:

His meandering walk,

His rollicking dance,

His growing and blossoming as trees,

And the songs, which once like mushrooms,

Burst forth naturally. (16-25)

The poet Jacinta Kerketta laments at the contemporary societal condition of the tribes. Once upon a time tribes were very happy peaceful and joyous  as they were confounded within the periphery of jungle but the challenges arise when they crawl towards the city culture and destroy their happy life. City is like ocean where everything merges and lost individual characteristics.  It is the supremacy of urban culture that devours everything.

City life

Kerketta experiences that the city never welcomes a tribe as tribes are not originated in the city. They are alien to the city. In the poem “In the veins of the city” the poet narrates the inner conflict of a naive tribe’s soul though the person from the tribal community lives in the city for a long time and almost infuses with the city life:

This city,

With whose walls gradually

I begin to form a bond,

Amidst some doubt and apprehension

Begins to grow a little faith and confidence, (1-5)

There would be no certainty that the relationship between the native and the city is healthy and faithful now. But during the habitual living in the city very small amount of trust and assurance have been gained as the native embraces the city. Still the inner soul doubts and knocks from the inside of the native to question about the real existence as a person. As the native no more lives in the jungle, poet uses metaphorically that the city awakes that native  with its basic element; “When a few of its bricks/ Knock at my door in the middle of the night/ Knowing the smell of those bricks,”(6-8). As the native knows the city very well now so opens the door of heart:

As I open the door,

They charge to crack open my skull,

Saying,

I am of a different blood.

Half dead they leave me behind (9-13)

The city directly hits to the brain of the native by blaming that native is a different race. Native does not belong to the city. It is the question of identity which has never been faced earlier in the native land. And the identity crisis is such a disease that makes anyone almost dead.

Identity crisis compels the native to think again that the purpose of living in the city as well as on the earth. City is a place of mix culture and mix blood but still some of the city dweller proclaims the authority as if they have originated the city and without their permission nobody can enter and live in the city:

Amidst these questions in my mind:

Why am I in this city?

Why am I on this Earth?

I wish to know

Whose blood flows

In the veins of this city after all? (14-19)

At the end poet arises a valid question if a native is not a part of the city then who did own the city from its origin? The poem indicates that the kind of behaviour a native generally receives from the city when someone from the rural land tries to embrace the city like his or her own.

Cattle’s tale

Urbanization spoils the happy and joyful life of the natives not alone. Urban growth makes the cattle’s’ life measurable. Roads are being constructed to connect the rural lands to the cities and through these roads people are not alone make the journey. Unfortunately, the cattle also make journey from green grazing land to the concrete cover city. The poem “The city and the cow” reflects the lives of the cattle:

I wonder

Who laid the roads

From the pastures to the city

For cows to make their long journey,

Who is making their share

Of grass from the earth disappear.

I also wonder

Who has spread this rumour

That the city has the power

To grow grass. (1-10)

Poet just mockingly refers that like the human being, cattle have also come into the city with fantasy of good life. Cattle’s fantasy is very short lived as these hungry cattle haunt for food everywhere. Thereafter, cattle try to return to the native pasture land but all roads to the native lands are blocked by the concrete structures. Now cattle are lying hopelessly on streets alone. The real image of the city cattle have been exposed to show the measurable condition of the cattle in the city:

In search of grass

They set forth

Big and small, entire herd,

On the path that leads

Towards the city.

All their illusions are punctured

By the pointed horns of hunger,

And they begin to look for

The roads back to their home and pasture,

But all roads are locked

By tall building blocks.

Lying on the streets forlorn (11-22)

Now hopeless hungry cattle have no options except garbage to eat. In the city, people kill each other mercilessly and children spoil their childhood days by collecting scraps to earn money. City cannot provide grass these cattle are now sitting in the middle of the city with the hope to go back again to their own world where green grass, jungle exist and people do not kill each other mercilessly:

And they understand for the very first time

That the city had no power indeed

To grow grass.

To the marrow shuddered

They flop down on the street with a thud,

And have been sitting thus,

Right in the centre of the city,

Lime a silent sit-down

Demanding

That they want to go

To their living pastures,

That await them even now somewhere.

That they wish to get lost

In those jungles where

There will be trees and leaves galore

But where man would not know

The art

Of hanging another man on a tree (34 -53)

The city means cruelty, artificiality and despair where cattle are treated with same indifferent attitude like the natives. The rural green native land has the capacity to make life comfortable for human being as well as cattle. The poet depicts a harsh picture of cattle and human conditions in city life. And the zeal to return to the native land is again repeated in the case of cattle like human being.

In the poem “In the history of animals” poet Jacinta Kerketta places the shameful picture of the so called civilized world. The poem is in a conversational mode where a goat Gattu is expressing joy by jumping here and there. Poet curiously speaks to the goat that the reason of joy is the closing of the slaughter house in the city:

The neighbour’s goat, Gattu,

Is leaping for joy before me.

I asked, “are you happy, for the slaughterhouses

Are closed in the city?” (1-4)

The goats are always meant to slaughter for meat. They are reared up only for that purpose. The goat Gattu was happy because the slaughter houses were closed and reminded that the moment in the history of animal would be documented. The time is so rare that the cows and goats are safe in the city. They won’t be slaughtered:

Wallowing around in the grass it said,

When animals would write down their history,

They shall remember this time for eternity,

That such an era had also come to be

When the lives of cows and goats were spared. (5 -9)

Though, the ideal moment in the poem about the cows and the goats can be imagined only. Allegorically it symbolizes the cruel nature of the city which never been a suitable place for goats and cows. The poet goes further more and said through the mouth of Gattu:

And humans opened slaughterhouses

To butcher and sell human flesh.

Never in the age of animals

Had there been

Sacrifice of humans this way. (10 -14)

The dark reality of civilized world has been exposed. Two distinct worlds are comparatively presented here. The age of animal represents the ancient world of forest life where human being only hunted animals to survive though, the entire world was predominated by the animals and there were no slaughter houses. On the other hand, the modern civilized people open the slaughter house of human being where human meat can be purchased. The civilized world is so cruel that people are opening slaughter houses in many ways. There are many examples like – war, girls trafficking for sex trade, human organ selling by the criminals and murdering of people for someone’s self benefit. In modern civilized urban world human beings are more afraid of human beings where anyone can be slaughtered for the interest of some more powerful human beings.

Conclusion

The poet compares life of human beings, especially the tribal people who live in the jungle or nearby jungle in rural settings with the city life. The complexity of city life destroys the easy harmonious joyous life of the native when he or she tries to live in the city by embracing the city culture. Hatred of the city compels to think that very native to live through identity crisis as if tribal people have no place in the city. Like the human being, domestic animals have the same fate in the city. Measureable cattle are hoarded together inside the city for food and get garbage as food. The depreciation of natural human existence and values are inevitable when urbanization comes into force. People are gradually and unconsciously losing their peace and happiness. They are completely unaware of the fact and follow the current of urban motion to get better life and livelihood. The journey towards the city changes human being and the animals thoroughly.

Works Cited

1. Chawla-D’Souza, Bhumika , et al., translators. Land of the Roots. By Jacinta Kerketta, Bharatiya Jnanpith, 2018

Gupta, Vandana. Mahasweta Devi A Critical Reading. Creative Books, 2009

2. Mukherjee, Alok, translator. Towards and Aesthetic of Dalit Literatue. By Sharankumar Limbale, Orient BlackSwan, 2016