Unsung Poet

Bishnu Ghatak: How long is the road to Guinness?

How many poems should a man write before we call him a poet? Ten thousand I saw at a glance from the diaries of Bishnu Ghatak who puts pen to paper, amidst all odds with a promise to reach the highest number in Guinness Book of Records.

An Economics graduate from Calcutta University, Ghatak once worked as a time keeper of Dum Dum Cantonment - Howrah Mini Bus route. He is living in a dingy room shared with wife Tapati and their only son Sambrito, in the vicinity of Nagerbazar. His father, Late Tarapada Ghatak, a connoisseur of poetry, inspired him a lot. But, he could not back up his dear son as he was mercilessly victimized by fate. Quitting his technician job with Telco, due to being handicapped after an accident, Bishnu had to maintain his family. His father had no other option left besides seeing his son working as an errand-boy at road side tea stalls.

But the only relief for Tarapada babu was Bishnu's ardent passion for poetry even amidst such turmoil. In his own words, "when my father saw my first published poem in school magazine, he was overwhelmed. Tears brimmed over his eyes and those tears are my inspiration still today". With an invocation to his father, before his creation, Gatak has composed more than 10,000 poems; perhaps the highest number in the world. "In Bengali, Nazrul Islam is still now the highest poem writer with 5000 poems. Tagore comes second with around 3000 poems. A French poet with the bulk of 6000 poems is the highest poem writer in the world. I myself have written more than 10,000 poems and aiming for Guinness Book as the highest poem writer in the world", explains Ghatak.

The bulk of Ghatak's poems are on social evils. Being a Naxalite sympathizer, he feels that "poetry is at the bottom, criticism of life." His only published book of poems Amar Gandib Amar Indradhanu, released in Calcutta Book Fair, 1996 reflects the darker side of the city of joy -- poverty, political clashes, pollution and other vices of Calcutta.

Though a poet from the marrow of his bone, Ghatak has penchant for script writing. He won the National Award for the best script on environment consciousness from the Ministry of Forest and Environment in 1992. "I went through film director Ritwik Ghatak's script of Nagarik to get the hang of script writing. In addition I had a little practical experience that helped me a lot."

There is more to Ghatak than meets the eye. His mirror writing or reverse writing compels appreciation. Inspired, by his guru Da Vinci, the Mona Lisa icon, Ghatak mastered the art of mirror writing, perhaps in the hope of finding himself in the Guinness Records. He first composes his own poems in reverse writing for some special reason. In his own words, "It’s because no one would be able to make any sense out of it, if the page is lost.” Besides his own poems Ghatak took upon himself to rewrite Sunil Gangopadhay’s Nirar Kabita, Tagore’s Sesher Kabita and Niren Chakrobarty’s Ulanga Raja.

If winter comes can spring be far behind? Spring in Ghatak’s career might come round with his reverse Mahabharata. To quote Ghatak, “It is more difficult to do it with Bengali letters for they are not in straight line as in any European languages”.

The following is an excerpt from Ghatak's Fossil where the poet ridicules the bourgeois:
The fretful day is not far,
When your mortal frame,
Will wizen into a skeleton,
With your lusturous eyes sunk
Into sockets,
Mocking at your portrait
With a disdainful smile,
To expose in its nakedness
The rotten mass,
The inevitable Metamorphosis of life

Into fossil.