Amalkanti

Although my blog’s name is angry young man, if any of you have ever looked at the address, you would have noticed it says Amalkanti.wordpress rather that Angry young man or anything of the sort. After trying to explain the meaning behind Amalkanti to someone the other day, I realized I had made a mistake, well sort of. I also realized I had failed to explain anything. So, I have now decided to write a new page dedicated to the explanation of the word and the beauty, well at-least the beauty I saw behind it.

Amalkanti is a bengali poem written by Nirendranath Chakrabarti; I’m not too sure about the correct spelling of his name, different sources gave different spellings, I’m just going with the one I learned. I’m pretty sure many of you must be familiar with it. I’m not too sure, which year it was written in or anything else like that, for that matter.  However, I do know that there have been songs written, based or influenced by this poem and also, that there’s a short film  based on it, directed by ARK Reepon made by the Group-B students of 2nd Advance Film Appreciation Course 2007-08. I first came across it in my first year English course. But before I go on, I’m going to post the poem, so that you may also read it and derive what you may, from it (it’s pretty straight forward; in a more poetic sense, that is).

AMALKANTI

-Nirendranath Chakrabarti

Amalkanti is a friend of mine,
we were together at school.
He often came late to class
and never new his lessons.
When asked to conjugate a verb,
he looked out of the window
in such puzzlement
that we all felt sorry for him.

Some of us wanted to be teachers,
some doctors, some lawyers.
Almalkanti didn’t want to be any of these.
He wanted to be sunlight-
the timid sunlight of late afternoon,
and the crows call again,
the sunlight that clings like a smile
to the leaves of the jam and the jaamrul.

Some of us have become teachers,
some doctors, some lawyers.
Amalkanti couldn’t become sunlight.
He works in a poorly lit room
for a printer.
He drops in now and then to see me,
chats about this and that
over a cup of tea, then gets up to go.
I see him off at the door.

The one among us who’s a teacher
could easily have become a doctor.
If the one who’d wanted to be a doctor
had become a lawyer,
it wouldn’t have made much difference to him.
All of us got more or less what we wanted,
all except Amalkanti -
who used to think so much about sunlight
that he wanted to become sunlight.

It’s been translated from Bengali by Sujit Mukherjee and Meenakshi Mukherjee. I’m not too sure as to how accurate the translation is, I’m sure it sound more beautiful in Bengali. But, till I actually learn Bengali or something, I’ll have to settle for this. I hope you could understand the deeper meaning of the poem. If you didn’t, then I’m sorry because, as much as I would like to enlighten you, it’s not exactly something I could put into words just like that. However I could always give a more, rather text book-ish explanation of it. No, I’m not going to go through it line by line, stanza by stanza or anything like that. But, yes, a summary of the poem in the simplest way possible. I may not be the best person for the job, but never the less.

Amalkanti is a boy, who is not too bright in his studies. Somewhat, dull perhaps. While the rest of his peers, classmates etc. want to become doctors, lawyers etc. he wants to be sunlight. And while his peers follow the more conventional career path and do achieve it, sadly Amalkanti never does become sunlight (no surprise there). He does, however get a poorly paid job in a printing press and works in a dark dingy room, not the most appealing to many I assume. But towards the end of the poem, in the last stanza; the tone of the poem somewhat changes (my opinion, you don’t necessarily need to feel the same). The poet talks of how the others who have the conventional, respectable, well paid jobs, wouldn’t have really bothered if they any other job, as long as it was still  respectable and of course, well paying. And on the other hand there’s Amalkanti, who on a very literal level is quite a failure (of course, keeping in mind the conventional use of the term successful). The boy who wanted so much to be sunlight, is now, in a deeper sense giving light to world by printing books etc..The light of knowledge etc. Yes, I know, it’s not much of an explanation, I failed to explain it well, but like I said, I’m not the best person for the job. However if I ever do manage to put into words, I shall update this page straight away. But, till then I hope you could see the beauty in this poem.

I can relate to this poem quite a bit, it honestly made me think a lot about what I wanted in life. Money or satisfaction. Of the many things I want to do in life, which I know will give me satisfaction; the truth is not too much money is involved. And sadly, where the money comes, I know I will never really be that satisfied. It made me think of how I wanted to define success, in the most conventional understanding of the term or in a more literal understanding of it. Although I am yet to decide what I do plan to do in life, this poem had a profound effect on me.  And, as much as I hate to admit it, I do think bout money; I’m only human after all. But, what ever I do in the future, I just hope I make the right choice and do whatever I have to, for the right reasons.