Betrayed by Hope: A Tribute to the Genius of Michael Madhusudan Dutt | EXTRACT

Betrayed By Hope is a profound play-script based on the letters of the 19th-century poet Michael Madhusudan Dutt to friends, well-wishers and patrons, painting the portrait of an artist as he plunges headlong into crisis after crisis, even as his imagination and creativity soar.

Read an excerpt from the extraordinary play, written by Namita Gokhale and Malashri Lal:

ACT I

As the curtain rises, a photograph of old Calcutta appears on the backdrop screen. It is then followed by an image of Sagardari, Madhusudan’s birthplace located in today’s Bangladesh. This village by the Kapotaksha river is not far from Jessore, which was the cultural centre in Madhusudan’s time. This scene is replaced with an image of modern Dhaka, about 300 km away, a crowded, bustling city. The image shifts back to Sagardari and holds still while the Sutradhar appears on the scene.

The Sutradhar, Rubina Rahman, is dressed in a sari, with a red bindi on her forehead, and seems rather uncomfortable in this outfit, as though she has been costumed for a role. She has a cultivated Asian-English accent and refers to her notes frequently. Her tone alternates between her lively city-girl self and the serious scholar with a task at hand.

SUTRADHAR

(In a serious tone)

This play is dedicated to Michael Madhusudan Dutt, visionary, provocateur and catalyst of Bangla literary culture.‘I shall come out like a tremendous comet,’ he wrote to his friend Raj Narain Basu in July 1861. His dazzling life and legacy live on only in fragmented memory. He was fascinated by British literature and European traditions, but at the end of his life, he returned to his mother tongue and his beloved birthplace. While in Versailles, he penned the sonnet ‘Kapotaksha’, commemorating a small river that flows past Sagardari, the village where he was born.

(Laughs in an embarrassed way)

How absurdly stilted that sounds! Let me introduce myself. I am Rubina Rahman—‘Rubi’ to my friends—a self-proclaimed lazy researcher stuck in a stuffy Department of Humanities at a private university in Dhaka. I often wonder what led me to this forgotten poet from undivided Bengal. Perhaps I was looking for an easy subject for a PhD, and I thought—well, I imagined—that an Anglophile who loved England would suit my studies well. I was also banking on the hope that I wouldn’t have to dig up those dusty bilingual dictionaries to research his work … I must confess that my Bangla is rather rusty. I imagined that Madhusudan would be available in translation, which, it turns out, wasn’t always the case!

So here I am, juggling with this man’s work—new translations of his poetry, his letters to his friends and mentors, and a sheaf of material that’s driving me round the bend. Why don’t I start from the beginning? So, first, with Madhusudan’s birthplace, then move on to his romantic middle-aged nostalgia for ‘home’—for Sagardari and the river that flows beside it…

What’s that? Who’s reciting poetry? Do I hear him?

An actor, offstage, recites the following poem.

Kapotaksha River

Always, O river, am I reminded of you—

In this solitude, I think only of you.

As in their dreams people hear magical sounds,

So your soothing murmur charms

My ears in delusion profound.

In many a country have I seen many a river

But this thirst for affection—which water can slake this ever?

Stream of milk in the breast of my birthland,

O, will I see you ever more again?

As days pass, you give water to the sea,

As the subject gives taxes to his lord majesty,

I beseech you, friend, to sing, as a comrade would,

To Bengalis the name of one who, in your love suffused

Chants, in a foreign land, your name in Bengal’s melody.

SUTRADHAR

Rather beautiful! Who would have thought? Makes you see the river, that essential prop in Bengal’s poetry. The chap was gifted, no doubt. Shall we call him MMD? ‘Michael Madhusudan Dutt’ is just too long. I wonder what he was really like.

A big desk piled with books and papers with a chair behind it. On the table, a quill, an inkpot, a globe and two candles. A comfortable armchair to the right, facing the audience. A podium to the left.

MMD, in his Western attire, is already seated at the desk, writing, searching through his papers and sipping cognac from a large balloon glass. He is about forty-five years old, despondently reading aloud the letters he had written in his youth, until the sparkle of memory energizes his voice.

The lights change. The Sutradhar is at the podium. Although Michael and Rubi exist in different time warps, they occasionally acknowledge each other’s presence on the stage they are sharing. Her voice is not neutral—at different times, it indicates disapproval of MMD, or else deep appreciation.

SUTRADHAR

(To herself )

A researcher’s journey is like that of a psychologist’s; one sees the literary works and becomes curious about the writer’s hidden self.

(Adopting a formal tone to address the audience)

MMD, born 25 January 1824, published seven poems at the age of seventeen. He had been introduced, through the teachings of David Lester Richardson (DLR to his admirers), to the Romantic poets of the era—Wordsworth and Coleridge, Keats and Shelley and, most importantly, Lord Byron. MMD enrolled at the Hindu College in Calcutta in 1837. By then, the unorthodox and inspirational teacher Henry Derozio had already resigned and died. As the only surviving child of his wealthy parents, MMD was pampered and given extraordinary latitude. He was even allowed to smoke and drink wine in front of his parents, and was the first student at Hindu College to dress in Western clothes.

The Sutradhar walks awkwardly to the other end of the stage and returns to her position, looking visibly confused by MMD’s presence on stage.

SUTRADHAR

Who is that? What brings Madhusudan here?

The focus shifts to MMD through appropriate lighting. He gets up from his chair and preens on stage, adjusting his cufflinks, playing languidly with his cane.

(End of excerpt. Act I continues…)

To read more from this spell-binding play, order your copy of Betrayed By Hope today!