... In the East Indies (1801-1965)

English poetry on India, we cannot appreciate if we do not know those who tried to write about it or by being in India about their Indian contacts and experiences to feel how was India like. 

D.L. Richardson  (1801-1865) is one of them. Let us have a taste of his poetic draughts whether these are significant or not, that is not our question, but just from the starting point of view, with the cutting of the ribbon and launching of the ship into the waters, a historical reading may be taken. Richardson started submitting poems to James Silk Buckingham’s Calcutta Journal with the initials D.L.R.  

D.L. Richardson who was an officer of the East India Company  was a man of literary pursuits, a bringer of periodicals and a proprietor of literary journals. He was an editor and finally a Professor of Literature at Hindu College, Calcutta where he groomed Michael Madhusudan Dutta too. He also worked afterwards as the Principal of Krishnagarh Govt. College and Hindu Metropolitan College. Let us see how an Englishman thinks of India and Indian scenarios and landscapes. How was the India of those times?

‘Sonnet. Written At Benares, In The East Indies’ is really a very fine poem telling of a desultory lass mourning for her lover to come or return back whose arrival awaited she. It was a custom then to burn and float the diya on the waters of the river and the flickering light used to struggle to survive and if it struggled to last more, a ray of expectancy   seemed to take on and if it extinguished by the way, it could suggest some untoward incident to have fallen. The poet would have definitely seen such an event as did see Henry Louis Vivian Derozio. From the fortune telling sense it may be romantic, but to take it as for true is not at all. Such a viewpoint has taken a toll upon and we have paid the highest price for it. The foreign raids, internal conflicts and rivalry and the hocus-pocus of medievalism too raked us badly. This is not for us to forget it.

It is twilight time shifting pale light with retreating steps and swapping with the dark eve to fall and enclose in with the dusk drawing nearer with a calm to cover up it all under the wrap of it. Benares’ majesty one can see it in the landscape view of the temple and the river scape attached to it with the river flowing by it and the stars taking to the sacred shrine. An old and holy city often engages us as for to know its historicity, ancient classicism, sect and creed. The wear boatmen after a day of uproar and hectic activity raise the crimson fires by the riverside banks. As the day draws to a close, a sultry maiden can be seen loitering around by the Ganga’s stream as if she were disturbed and nervous to know her fate. Her mind dwells far and she seems to be nonplussed and quite perturbed almost at the crossroads of life vexed with the crisscrosses of her palm-lines. What would happen to her if he were not alive? Had it been so, how would she take the steps of life? Her lover has separated from her and his whereabouts unknown for whatsoever be it the reason. Who to answer it? Even the Brahmin fails to provide her an answer. How to eke out a living? How to live a life without him? The times too were hard and difficult.

Such a thing embarrassed us and we reeled under inaction, excessive rites and rituals, backwardness, poverty, underdevelopment, superstition, inaction, fatalism, lethargy and so on.

How were our rigidities? How was the age and how were the times then quite unsure of? How much uncertain of?

Sonnet. Written At Benares, In the East Indies

The shades of evening veil the lofty spires
Of proud Benares’ fanes; a twilight haze!
The calm scene shrouds; the weary boatmen raise 
Along the dusky shore their crimson fires, 

That tinge the circling groups. As day retires,
The lone and long-deserted maiden strays
By Ganga’s  stream, where float the feeble rays
Of her pale lamp---but lo! the light expires!---

Alas! how cheerless now the mourner’s breast,
For life hath not a charm—her tears deplore
The fond youth’s early doom, and never more
Shall Hope’s sweet visions yield her spirit rest! 

The cold wave quenched the flame - an omen dread
The maiden dare not question; - he is dead!