There is nothing new to introduce P. Lal (1929-2010) because those who read Indian English poetry know him as the founder of a poets’ corner with his press and publication house based in Calcutta as well as a poet publisher of friendly volumes on an experimental basis and from the commoners he chose to promote the best, to bring it the stalwarts of Indian poetry even giving a chance to the beginners. In one sense, he saw stalwarts in the crowds of common folks, unknown personae and protagonists, just like a communist sees it. It is none the else but he who gave a chance to the budding poets and writers of India by publishing their nondescript and nowhere books from which they rose seeing the press and publication otherwise who would have liked to introduce and nurture and nourish? But a few other talented ones did not. 

At that time there were no takers of Indian poetry in English, no buyers of the theory. Even Lal too had not the publisher around to publish his slender volumes of verse practised and on the anvil. He too was an aspiring poet and those who were published too were promising ones. Some of them not, most of them were imitative and copious, derivative and laborious in expression. Those nondescript poetry-practitioners whose whereabouts were unknown and whoever could reach out to him, could access him got the chance to avail of and those who could not, were not, this is also the truth we do not know. 

Whatever be the story of making or unmaking, Lal has here chosen an artefact to base his poem upon and this is, but Yakshi found from Didarganj, Patna. The poem is about an Indian classical sculpture and is voluptuous and amorous too. The poem which Lal has written is the outcome of an art gallery visit; a museum visit and he has chosen to delve, and the poem is of historical and mythological importance. First, how Yakshas and Yakshis have engaged us and so are Apsaras and Gandharvas is the fact. But as for a critique of it one will want the historical document and ready reference in this regard without which it may not be accomplished.

A writer of The Parrot’s Death and other poems (1960); Love’s the First & other poems (1962); “Change!” They Said & other poems (1966); Draupadi and Jayadratha and other poems (1967); Yakshi from Didarganj and other poems (1969); The Man of Dharma and the Rasa of Silence (1974); The Collected Poems of P. Lal (1977); Calcutta: A Long Poem (1978), Lal goes on scaling heights, eking out a name for him as a promoter and a practicing out, but lacks the verve and strength he should have.

How is the artistic sense expressed through the sculpture! How voluptuous and classical the image! How the damsel in youthful decoration! How aesthetic and ornate the imagery in carving! Lal would have seen it in the Patna Museum, but one may also write after seeing the picture. Had the photo been with, it would have helped in analyzing the poem. Now the readers can see it on the Intranet which is really very helpful in annotation. As for such a poem, the author’s note is very important. Whatever be it, the poet is describing Yakshi from Didarganj. The finding of the statue is also a story. Maybe it while retrieving the statue, it could have got broken.

Call them Yakshis, Yakshinis or Yakkhis who form the class of nature spirits other than nymphs and celestial dancers and here she is but one of them sculptured in such a way. A classical figurine, it is decorative as well as adorning; it is bodily as well as erotic. What the motif behind? Thanks go to the artisans who have made them, but for the viewers it becomes difficult to grapple with undergoing emotions and feelings. How to take to the erotica and the classical stance at the same time when we come to view it? Hidden feelings rake us internally. The figure arouses our sexual dreams as well as caters to our aesthetic sense too. The breasts, nipples, belly and navel, bracelets and necklace, the burly body showing the in-built young maidenly flesh and blood, all take us to a different pedestal of thinking. Just a glimpse at her refreshes us with the memory of nautch girls, beauties with the white jasmines stuck into hair. The scent of the jasmine, the scent of blood, what can hide it from? 

Those who crafted and carved in stone, sculptors and artisans definitely had some latent dreams to nourish and nurture which they tried to vent out through their creativity shown in art and sculpture which they excelled in of course. Yakshi from Didarganj is shringaric and kaamuk presentation of beauty, aesthetic and lustful indeed as underneath lies it hidden our carnal desires of possession and phallic consciousness. Kamsutra, we are unable to keep away from reading. 

Yakshi From Didarganj

(Didarganj--Patna Museum, Exhibit 134)
Patna: 8 December 1965

Bubbles of bead necklace like a river
Flow through the valley of her opulent breasts
Briefly trapping the touring eye; to their carver
These sandstone breasts with broken
Nipples were like apples taken
In token quenching of monumental thirst.

Eyes travel on twin folds on her asking
Belly, in the navel’s whirlpool is pulled
Youth of voluptuous innocence, asking
The same question—why,
Why is the flesh, why 
Belly and navel, innocence and whirlpool, pulled.

Only in lonely dreams is the answer: Fairy,
Yakshi, beloved, stone, girl with feather fan,
Carved in dreams for fits of phallic fury,
Purge flesh of desire!
Purge it in pools of fire!
Till, purged, man discover he is immortal stone.

But all in delight! All in sensuous
Delight, yakshi, with left arm missing, the right
With feather fan, broad thighs feasting the senses,
Hair in two frozen buns,
Breasts between whose two suns
A rivery necklace awaits descent of night.