Amidst a loud applause, Anupam Halder walked up to the stage and climbed up the stairs to the dais with a fair amount of trepidation.

A glittering function had been arranged at the prestigious Mittal Hall in his honour. It was a distinguished gathering that had assembled today in the afternoon, to greet him after he had been chosen for the coveted National Award. He, Anupam Halder, the poet who had been writing for the last thirty-five years, had been bestowed an award which would do anyone proud. He spoke through his poems, but before a gathering, he was totally at a loss for words. He did not know what to say and how to begin. And as he did not believe in a well-prepared speech, he was all the more nervous and afraid.

“This way sir,” a lady smiling sweetly, ushered him to the specially cushioned chair.

Anupam thanked her and obediently sat down on the soft chair. He looked at the auditorium and found it was packed to the brim. Many people stood at the door and stared at him, possibly because they wanted to catch a first-hand sight of the poet who had been awarded with the National Award.

There was some swift whispering around him and Anupam saw a gorgeously dressed lady, befitting a marriage occasion, walking up to the mike.

“Ladies and gentlemen”, began she addressing the audience, “It is our privilege and honour to have the distinguished poet, Sri Anupam Halder with us today. As we all know he has recently been awarded the prestigious National Award for his collection of poems - The Bunch of Flowers. But what we do not know . . . . . . .” As she went on, Anupam found that most of the facts that were being told about him were correct. He was indeed surprised at the lady’s homework, for he remembered reading once that the chairman of the Nobel Committee while awarding the prize for Literature to Tagore in 1913, had remarked in his speech that Tagore for a time in his life had led a contemplative hermit life in a boat floating on the waters of a tributary of the sacred Ganges river. Anupam wondered how could Tagore digest such nonsense when the truth was it had been Debendranath, Tagore’s father, who had asked him to look after the zamindari estates in the region near the river Padma.

He looked at the mike. The lady was speaking about Anupam, his childhood, his first writings and his first major work - The Moon Also Shines. When was that published? Anupam thought for a while.

It must have been twenty-five years ago. He looked at the lady and the others who were there at the dais and found that most of them would have been toddlers at that time.

He looked at the audience again. The lights were fully on him and in the semi-darkness he could make out the faces of his friends - Shekhar, Pradip, Anik and their families. All the others seemed unfamiliar. There were a couple of grim-faced men also. Who were they and what were they doing here? From their countenance and posture they appeared to be government officials. Had they ever read his poems? Hardly. In fact looking at them, he wondered whether they knew what poetry was. They were here merely for the sake of attendance.

He glanced at the mike.

The lady was animatedly singing praises about him, his work and how the critics raved about him.

Anupam looked at the audience again. The crowd near the gate had thinned, obviously some of them had slipped off, their first curiosity of setting their eyes on the National Award recipient being satisfied. He looked at the friends of the faces again. They seemed happy and contended. Their children were fidgeting. Anyone could understand the reason for doing so. And who was that bald old man sitting in the second row? What was he doing here, wearing a suit in the hot August afternoon?

Anupam screwed his eyes and found that the man was nodding his head in appreciation. As he looked at him carefully, he found the nod to be a bit jerky. After staring at him for a few seconds, he realised that the suited man was surreptitiously enjoying a comfortable spell of forty-winks.

“Probably a result of missing the afternoon siesta,” thought he with a heavy heart. Slowly it dawned on him that, like the old man, there could be many others who were apparently unaware or disinterested in his work.

What would happen now that he had been awarded the National Award? Probably his market value will improve. A few more would buy his books and keep them in their elegantly furnished drawing-room. His publisher, Ganesh Sasmal, might improve his terms. Maybe his poems would become a status symbol. And then what would happen to him? Would he keep on writing? For what? To become an icon? What would have happened to him had he not received the award? Anupam suddenly felt like rising from the chair and running out of this entire show of Machiavellism. But could he afford to do such a thing now? He realised that he was trapped in the artificial surroundings which he hated and dejectedly sank in his own chair. It was only after someone gently touched his hands, that he realised he was being called at the mike to say a few kind words in this occasion.

Anupam got up heavily. Thank goodness for the award! His absent-mindedness had been taken for granted. He went up to the mike unable to decide what to say. Although all eyes were looking at him, waiting expectantly for him to speak, he realised his nervousness had disappeared. He wished he could say that he was nearly sixty years of age and was too old for such falseness.

Instead he humbly declared that the award had been given to a lesser deserving person and that he would try his best to live up to it. He also added that he wished the organisers had not taken this unnecessary trouble of felicitation.

He paused for a second wondering if a request would come for reciting his own poems, but his apparently modest remark invoked another applause and he was promptly garlanded and a Kashmiri shawl was wrapped around his shoulders in the heat.

Anupam sweetly accepted whatever was showered on him and wished the function would come to an end.

He did not have to wait long, for after fifteen minutes, he found himself at the back seat of a car surrounded by bouquets, garlands, gifts and a pile of books by other unknown poets. Most of them had approached him for his views and he had kindly consented. Anupam remembered one of the young poets declaring himself primarily as a sculptor of words rather than a poet. Anupam wondered what that meant. He looked at the driver. He was a thick-set man with crew-cut hair. Did he ever read poetry? Anupam wished he could ask him.

He reflected for a second. This was not his car, it belonged to the gorgeously dressed lady at the mike. She had asked the driver to take him back to his house.

Anupam felt another impulse to ask the question. He opened his mouth to speak, but to his surprise, found himself asking if the driver knew the direction of his house.

“Oh yes sir,” replied the driver eagerly. “Madam has given me the instructions very clearly. She has asked me to leave you at your house and attend to her at the Theatre Complex where she will be inaugurating the Theatre Festival.”

Anupam fell silent.

He wanted to run away from it all, to a far away place where he could sit and relax. He did not want to go home right now. A crowd would be waiting for him at the house. Telegrams, phone-calls, opportunists, well-wishers all would be piling on him the moment he reached home.

“Ah Solace, thy other name is Solitude,” muttered he, reciting a couple of lines of his own poem.

He thought for a while and asked the driver if he would kindly drop him at the Strand and deposit the presents at his house. “But sir, madam has told me to leave you at your house,” protested the driver. “Now don’t worry about me young man,” said Anupam, “I do know my way in the city. If you tell madam, that I suddenly felt like taking a walk, she will understand,” he added.

The driver agreed after a moment’s hesitation and Anupam soon found himself at the banks of the Ganges river just as the evening sun descended and an orange hue filled the sky.

He looked around him.

It was not what is used to be when he was young. The topography of the land had changed drastically making it more claustrophobic, but the buoys were still floating on the water as it used to. A steamer cruised lazily across blowing its horn. The sun had just set, but there was ample light around and the boatmen were yet to light their lamps. There was a sublime tranquillity in the entire atmosphere. But all this seemed to escape him for there was a question continuously pricking his mind.

Should he write? If yes, then for whom? For himself? Hardly.

It had become abundantly clear that people really did not understand his poems, or more so, care for his poems. Then why write?

What would happen if he suddenly announced that he would stop writing? Would anyone care? Oh yes now they would, thanks to the National Award! He smiled ruefully as he thought of his small room in the terrace over- crowded with reporters hungry for any odd bit of information about his decision and its cause. Would the room hold so much people? He wondered. But then what will he do? He could not afford to sit idle! Write again and fall into the artificial strappings where a poet’s sensibility is thwarted and crushed till its dead? If only……….

A sound of excited voices caught his ears. The voices were speaking to themselves and as he listened carefully, he realised that they belonged to a couple. The tone of their voice betrayed their spontaneous enthusiasm and excitement as if they had made a startling discovery. Anupam looked at the source of the sound and found a boy and girl sitting on one of the circular cemented benches under a banyan tree. The cemented bench was a couple of steps below the Strand jutting out into the river and it offered a magnificent view of the river against the setting sun.

Although it was against his nature, Anupam could not help eavesdropping and slowly crept forward. As he drew near, it appeared to them that they were students of literature, for they were excitedly discussing some work of art. Anupam tiptoed towards them and as he was about to climb down a step, his foot froze at what he heard.

“Listen to this,” cried the boy, “This is much better.”

And with a voice burning with passion and enthusiasm he recited:

“Where demented women are coerced into maternity
by the sane;
Where the blessed gift of God is devoured
By the canine; . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .”

By the time it dawned on Anupam that the boy was reciting one of his own poems, he found that the girl had already quietened him down and in a tone that betrayed a free-wheeling spirit, was reciting from one of his first collections - The Moon Also Shines.

“Ah thy silvery sublime,” cried she, “Pristine in nature as it engulfs me. . .”

Anupam Halder, the poet whose pen flowing like a stray bird created poems touching the inner chord of the heart, looked up, and found a ray of hope in the descending pall of gloom. He realised he had received the answer to his piercing question and the award of a lifetime.

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