Critical note on The Fakeer of Jungheera

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Topic: Critical note on The Fakeer of Jungheera

Name        : Kishan Hariyani

Semester   : 01

Roll No      : 21

Paper No   : 04 (Indian Writing in English)

Enrolment No: 15101021

Email ID    : kishanhariyani1992@gmail.com

Year            : 2015-17

Submitted To: Department Of English                     

Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University

I     Introduction:

The Fakeer of Jungheera by Henry Louis Vivian Derozio. He was born on 18 April, 1809 and living only 22 years. He died on 1831. He was a teacher and a poet. Derozeo was an Indian poet and assistant headmaster of Hindu College, Kolkata, a radical thinker and one of the first Indian educators to disseminate Western learning science among the young men of Bengal.

Long after his death due to Cholera, his influence lived on among his former students. Who came to be knows as young Bengal and many of whom became prominent in social reform, law and journalism.

Derozio wrote wonderful poems in English. “The Fakeer of Jungheera” is one of the most significant landmarks in the history of patriotic poetry in India. In his days Bengal faced many problems of caste and creed. The reassessment and inclusion of  Derozio in the canon of Indian writing in English has to do with many factors. Like communism, religious aspects, colonial aspects.

In The Fakeer of Jungheera ‘Derozio mixed the tantric, Hindu, mythological, Islamic and Christian tradition. He got the idea about writing the poem of spiritual love from Baital Pachisi. As the story goes, if king Vikram remains steadfast in his love for his queen, he can resurrect her and once more both can find happiness together. The dauntless fortitude and courage that the king exemplifies by passing through the horrible ordeal in the graveyard leading to his triumph, inspires conclusion to the tragic death of the Fakeer in the arms of his beloved Nuleeni. If the Nuleeni can gain be resurrected in the arms of the Fakeer if she can pass through the horrors and temptation of life.

Ø Theme of The Fakeer Of Jungheera

Ø Emancipation  Of  Love

This Theme can be found in this Poem, whose principle idea is Love and it very much connected with this poem.

Naleeni ‘s Beauty

“The smile comes from her ruby lips

like the sun rushing from eclipse”.

Ø Sati

Instead of Belaboring  upon the misery of slavery , Derozio embark upon  a mission of resolving  some of  the inherent evils of Hindu society especially the practice of widow burning. and The Fakeer Of Jungheera is also showed our ‘Sati Practice’.

Ø Victimization of Women

NULEENI AS A VICTIM

·        Widow of her husband

·        Victim of “Sati Pratha”

·        Victim by society

·        Helpless

·        Mentally dead

·        Death of her “beauty” and “Charm”

·        Death of her love

·        Becomes second widow of her lover Fakeer

Ø The Fakeer of Jungheera- A study in the Narrative Art:

                   “The Fakeer of Jungheera” is the masterpiece creation of Henry Derozio. In his poems, he deals with the theme of patriotism, of love, of nature, of death. The central theme of ‘The Fakeer of Jungheera’ is the ignoble and in human practice of ‘sati’ in the contemporary orthodox Indian society. This rotten system had been in vogue in the Indian society for centuries, and Derozio vehemently protested the ‘sati’ system both in his social life and in the classroom as a teacher at the Hindu college, Calcutta. He wrote this poem to highlight the issue. Derozio writes in it of various aspects of natural scenery, the evils of love which leads to confrontation at different levels. First the funeral pyre, and later when Nuleeni’s relatives, with the help of the Mughal army, try rescue her from the Fakeer a fierce battle goes on. The Fakeer fights bravely but is ultimately killed, in the battle field. Nuleeni joins him and dies in his embrace and their souls depart from this mundane world, bound by the considerations of customs and creed.

The Fakeer of Jungheera is a long narrative poem in two cantos, each running into about a thousand lines. Each canto, again, is divided into different metrical sections in various measures. This subject-matter in conventional because most of the epics, ballads and narratives deal with the subject of love, unsuitable marriage, separation by death, reunion with the former lover followed by the reaction of the society and relatives who rise in revolt to take revenge upon the person outraging the social norms.

          The character of Fakeer is secondary to that of Nuleeni. It is Nuleeni who is at the center of the tragic tale. She is a figure of misery and a helpless, hapless, forlorn object of social religious regimentation. First of all there is the theme of social injustice. Dr. Jasbir Jain also says, “at the thematic level the unifying idea is the suffering of women at the hands of society.”

The holy Ganga has religious and ritual association with her. She prompts the poet to write about the theme of religion which we get in the chorus of Brahmins and that of women. The theme of happy life after death achieved through the rite of sati has also been projected.

Ø The social Malaise of Sati:

          Instead of belaboring upon the misery of slavery, Derozio embarked upon a mission of resolving some of the inherent evils of Hindu society especially the practice of widow burning. In his notes on canto 1, Derozio criticizes the mistaken belief that the practice of Hindu widow burning examples “an act of unparalleled magnimity and devotion” and explains at length the problem of sati and his position on it.

Ø Analysis of poem Fakeer of Jungheera: 

                       

The protagonist of the Fakeer poem is a robber Fakeer or a mendicant, who belongs to some unidentified Muslim sect, while the heroine, the widow Nuleeni, comes from an upper cast Bengali Hindu family. Derozio’s uses Christian imagery, such as heaven and juxtaposes it against the Hindu tradition of sati, Muslim prayers and tantric tale of raja Vikramjit and Baital to create acquaint, romantic atmosphere.

In these poems Derozio emerged as ‘the first modern poet of India’. Buddhadev Bose,the great Bengali Critic, pointed out in his introduction to Kalidasa’s ‘Meghdut’, “the body of Sanskrit literature is like a vast and venerated corpse for the ordinary Indian reader primarily because of the divorce effected in modern like between the everyday and Sanskrit.”Similarly, says Roshinka Chaudhary,

“I would venture that ‘nineteenth century idiom’,  in which much of Derozio’s verse is written may be compared to Sanskrit in its often remote English literariness; even more patently for the contemporary reader it is the Romantic turn to inwardness and the Modernist turn to quotidian that informs all of his or her understanding of what poetry is constitutive of.”

Hence, to understand Derozio’s poems one must understand the political, cultural and aesthetic value he engaged with throughout his career.

There are however conflicting opinions about his character. There are some who say that he is saintly wise and holy while other talk of his mindless cruelty, treachery and devilry. In stanza four the poet comments that there are cases when evil men may take to religion to hide their criminal intent:

  “Alas! In fairest seeming souls

  The tide of guilt all blackly rolls;

   And then they steal religion’s ray

   Upon its surface but to play:

   As o’er the darkest sea a gleam

   Of brightest sunshine oft may beam,

   Gilding the wave, while dark beneath

   Are lurking danger, woe, and death.”

The wonderful play of light and shade bring out a deceptive human nature and the evil that lies buried in the human soul.

“O! For the speed of swiftest hound

At once into her arms to bound!

O! for the speed of sunny beam,

Or eagle’s wing, or airy dream,

Or lightning glance of rapid eye

From younger rocky height to fly.”

In the intense bond of love Nuleeni’s lover comes and takes her to his abode. They forgot their caste discrimination. Fakeer fought that the people at funeral and took Nuleeni with him. Nuleeni left all the relations of behind and got united with her lover. They did not know that they were challenging the ancient and so called norms of the society. They took the risk to escape and elope with each other rejecting the social order. Fakeer with great courage snatched his beloved from the people of upper class. The upper class people had the authority in Bengal. How can they bear the insult? How can they tolerate the weaker sect running away in this way?

Henry Derozio here, through this poem is opposing the evils of the Bengal’s society. Indian society was divided into upper and lower caste religious division caste and creed and many superstitious beliefs. The people were orthodox. Derozio wanted them to come up leaving the dark sides of the characteristics aside. He was criticized due to his preaching. The youth supported whereas superstitious people tried to block them.

The brave rebellion of the lover draws our attention towards the inequality of Indian subcontinent. One can say that this poems marks an important step in the use of social themes in literary texts endorsing a syncretistic tradition quite popular in the nineteenth century Bengal. Instead of belaboring upon the misery of slavery, Henry Derozio embarked upon a mission of resolving some of the inherent evils of Hindu society especially the practice of widow sitting alive on the pyre.

Derozio opens the first canto with the wind wandering gently like young spirits.

“The sun lit steam in dimples breaks,

 As when a child from slumber wakes,

 Sweet smiling on its mother-there,

 Like heavenly hope o’er mortal care”

Second stanza the sad theme is established where a woman has to become sati.

In fifth stanza a group of people protected by soldiers is depicted. In the next one Hindu woman sing songs of sacrifice as Nuleeni is to die but later on we come to know that she runs away with Fakeer. Up to stanza 14 we are not told the name of our heroine. In stanza 14 Derozio juxtaposed against the Christian image of an external soul highlight the syncretism aspect of the poet’s imagination. In the next stanza the poet prophesies the tragic future of two lover and weave images of angles.

                  

Ø To Wind up:

The secular and universal ideas that Derozio exposes in his poetry do not go well with the separatist and divisional politics of modern India.

These are some of the revisionist consequences of modernity. However, the ‘modes of social life that emerged in the early nineteenth century in response to modernity in India now take us beyond modernity’ into the information age. If India must shine it must do so within its own traditions and Derozio occupies a central place in it. The poet through the impossible and bold story of love-affairs between Hindu upper class widow and a Muslim lower class. Fakeer reflected and criticized the evils of Indian society.
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