Nature writes back: The pens have not tired

Nature and environment have marked their presence in Indian history since ancient times. Vedic poets deified various forms of nature and meticulously described their functions. In the Rig Veda, the most impressive 250 verses were composed in praise of Indra, the god of rain. Vedic poets, with their remarkable imaginative expansion, presented detailed descriptions of various forms of love between deified natural forces through: the relationships of father-daughter (between sky and dawn), husband-wife (between heaven and earth) and father-son (between heaven and sun). But the full depth and sensuality of attraction manifests primarily in descriptions of the lover-beloved relationship between these deified natural forces.

In the Sanskrit literary tradition, nature appears in its fullness in the works of Kalidasa and Bhavabhuti. The images of natural environment’s freedom and spontaneity in Meghadutam (The Cloud Messenger), the description of spring in the third canto of Kumarasambhavam, the extremely vivid and natural depiction of the ocean in the thirteenth canto of Raghuvamsham are what truly make Kalidasa the crown jewel of Sanskrit poetry. According to biographer G K Bhat, Bhavabhuti’s descriptions of nature reveal that Kalidasa is not the only son of nature, but there is another one — Bhavabhuti. However, there is a difference between the two. Kalidasa took more interest in describing the soft and beautiful forms of nature: tender vines and flowers; soft leaves and lotus stems; flowing rivers and calm lakes; shady groves and gentle breezes; and charming moon and cool fragrance of sandalwood.

These images are certainly found in Bhavabhuti’s love poetry, but his interest lies more in depicting the magnificent, frightening, and diverse forms of nature. If nature in Kalidasa’s poetry is immersed in the waves of tranquil bliss, then in Bhavabhuti’s poetry it is animated with consciousness and emotion, and resonates with sound and excitement. He draws such pictures of nature which contain magnificence and often thrilling and astonishing beauty.

Tulsidas appears in the 16th century as a true successor of Sanskrit literature, along with other devotional poets. In “Aranyakanda” of Ramacharitmanas, nature shows its various forms in their entire splendour. Critic Nandkishor Naval believes that the description of Ram wandering in grief after Sita’s abduction is influenced by Kalidasa’s play Vikramorvashiya. According to him, the story of Ram wandering in the separation of Sita and asking the animals of the forest about her whereabouts is directly taken from Kalidasa’s play.

The tradition of literature’s connection with nature and environment reappears in modern times among the Chhayavadi poets after a long interval. According to critic Namvar Singh, “This tradition appeared in Hindi for the first time, after almost a hundred years, in Hindi’s Chhayavad. Sumitranandan Pant, the poet from the Himalayan foothills, is not the first poet. Before him, you will find this in ‘Ekantvasi Yogi’ as well... After Chhayavad, and in the essays of Acharya Ramchandra Shukla, who is considered among the prolific critics of that era, you will find many scenes of the hills, bushes, and waterfalls of Mirzapur.”

Namvar Singh finds a comprehensive presence of nature-environment in the poems of Agyeya among post-Chhayavadi poets and considers his poem “Asadhya Veena” to be the best from this perspective. According to him, the sounds that emerge from the lines of the poem, the images that arise from them, are all images of nature, and if one wants to see the essence of all forms of nature in one place, they all can be found in this poem.

Just a few lines from “Asadhya Veena” are capable of proving Namvar Singh’s statement. Before playing the veena, the ascetic Kesakambali remembers:

Yes, I remember; the patter of raindrops on leaves in lightning-lit clouds

The silent dripping of mahua in the dense night.

The startled chirp of the nestling

The melodious gurgling sound of the

forest waterfall’s

Swift, rippling water caressing the rocks

The muffled beat of the festive drum from Parvati village filtering through the mist

The shepherd’s absent-minded flute

The woodpecker’s rhythm

The eager flutter of the butterfly

The sliding of a dewdrop—so delicate, fluid, that dropping-dropping it seems to

Have become a night jasmine flower....

Until now, in this long tradition of literature, nature and environment were presented as a support. It was a medium for expressing the most excellent form of the creator’s art. It was primarily being used in the form of simile-metaphor in the poetic world or being described in the course of subtle observation of the surroundings. Agyeya or the poets-storytellers of his tradition had no news of forests being destroyed, rivers being dammed, mountains cracking and changing seasons due to aggressive consumerism or endless desire for profit.

They were self-absorbed in the journey from romance to spirituality or moving towards liberation from the endless cycle of birth and death. They had no information that the Homo sapiens species would become extinct soon. They also did not know that three to 300 species are being endangered or becoming extinct every day due to the use of chemicals in our various activities. But the poet-story writers and non-fiction writers of our time are much more alert and sensitive. They consider all living beings and plants as equal citizens of the earth and are not only saddened by their pain but also raise a strong voice against their destruction.

In these poetic lines from Kedarnath Singh’s poem “Jadein” (Roots), the resonance of this resistance can be felt:

Roots are shining, clods happy

The grass knows

The time for ant reproduction is

approaching

After the day’s heat

Freshly ground hot flour

Sitting on an old man’s shoulder

Is returning home

The dullness is still struggling

Against news of the earth’s destruction

With all the strength of its being

Staying pressed to the earth

Mainly like Mahasweta Devi in Bengali and Gopinath Mohanty in Odia, in Hindi, too, Ram Dayal Munda, Sanjeev, Manmohan Pathak, Maitreyi Pushpa, Hariram Meena, Kedar Meena, Pramod Meena, Rakesh Kumar Singh, Mahua Maji, Ashwini Kumar Pankaj, Rose Kerketta, Walter Bhengra, Mahadev Toppo, Nirmala Putul, Grace Kujur, Vandana Tete, Anuj Lugun, Jacinta Kerketta, and others, have given Adivasi discourse a complete form in the literary world through their works.

It is a characteristic of Adivasi philosophical thinking that it does not worry merely about the physical- metaphysical, bodily-divine welfare of human beings alone, like other philosophies do. In Adivasi philosophical tradition, humans are not “superior” beings of this universe. Rather, in the Adivasi spiritual tradition, humans are just one unit like other biological units of the animal and plant worlds. Adivasi thinking believes that an ant, a vine, a plant, a small insect also has the same right on this earth as any human. Therefore, when terror is unleashed on the elements of nature—forests, rivers, mountains—by dressing up the endless greed for profit as sacred development, the Adivasi voice begins to roar, it begins to call for an uprising.

The horrific nature of environmental destruction can be deeply felt in the lines of young poet Anuj Lugun’s poem “Letter to a Friend in the City”:

Iron flowers have bloomed in our forest

Bouquets of bauxite are arranged.

Mica and coal

... are displayed daily in markets

At both wholesale and retail prices

Here, large dams also bloom like flowers

Schools for soldiers have opened

To sell them;

... Yesterday I saw a mountain going

on a tank

Before that, the river went

Now the news is spreading that

My village is also about to leave from here,

if my people meet you in the city

Do take care of them.

As they were leaving from here

I saw moisture in their eyes...

Seeing the women leadership of various movements to protect the nature/environment, in my novel Global Gaon Ke Devta, I express, “Earth is also female, Nature is also female, Sarna Mai is also female, and those fighting for her—Satyabhama, Irom Sharmila, C.K. Janu, Surekha Dalvi, and here in Pat, Budhni Di and Sahiya Lalita are also female. Per-haps only a woman understands a woman’s pain. Like Sita, the daughters of the earth are ready to merge into the earth. Let the hunter understand.” Like Vandana Shiva’s eco-feminism, a tradition of thought-writing has not yet been established in that way in Hindi, but the environmental-thinking books of well-known poet Bhavani Prasad Mishra’s son Anupam Mishra have created something of a movement in both Hindi and non-Hindi regions.

His two books, Aaj Bhi Khare Hain Talab and Rajasthan Ki Rajat Boondein, have revitalised indigenous initiatives for water conservation through-out the country. The popularity of these two books in last three decades has been commendable. The study, writing, and activism of Dinesh Kumar Mishra, an engineer by profession, has highlighted the unscientific and illogical nature of dam construction on rivers and has torn apart the veil over the cruel dance of legislature, executive, and capital behind false development. His book Bandini Mahananda published in 1994 had stirred a generation. Former professor of Kumaon University, Shekhar Pathak’s comprehensive book on the Chipko Movement, titled Hari Bhari Ummeed, is being welcomed in the same way. The darkness is becoming dense and deep due to the corporatisation of the welfare democracy. But the pens have not tired; the fire has not been extinguished. The water of sensitivity is still glistening in the chest and eyes. The ray of hope has not been extinguished.

(Ranendra is a literary critic and author of Global Gaon Ke Devta)

This series explores the most pressing environmental issues through the prism of literature

This article was originally published in the May 16-31, 2025 print edition of Down To Earth