Vidyasagar had curiously been watching the cherub faced little boy for a while from the window in front of him. The boy was perched on a wall outside and perfectly imitating someone he had supposedly met. Vidyasagar remarked to Kartikeya Chandra, “I’m sure, one day the boy would turn out to be someone great”.
Kartikeya Chandra, seemingly immersed in his thoughts, said, “I think he’s already a genius”.
Dewan Kartikeya Chandra and his wife Prasannamoyee had eight children-seven sons and a daughter. He was the Dewan of the Maharajah of Krishnanagar, of the Nadia district in Bengal. Their youngest son Dwijendra was born to them on 19 July, 1863. Born to an enlightened family, he was to be surrounded by the luminaries of the Bengal Renaissance from birth. Vidyasagar, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Dinabandhu Mitra were regular visitors to their home. Dwijendra was a very meritorious student. After passing F.A. from Krishnanagar, he passed B.A. from Hooghly College and then M.A. from Presidency College, Calcutta. He got a government scholarship to study Agriculture in England and availed of it. While in England, he was deeply influenced by English literature and theatre. Emulating the early years of Michael Madhusudan Dutt, he wrote an English book of poetry The Lyrics of Inde (1886). His experiences in England were published in Pataka magazine serially, as Bilater Potro. Obtaining his degree from the Royal Agricultural College and Agricultural Society, he returned home and procured a government job. The conservative Hindu society of Krishnanagar ostracized him for crossing the Kalapani (impure ocean). Even then he had the temerity to choose his own bride and to wed without a dowry. He married Surabala, the eldest daughter of the famous homeopathy practitioner of Calcutta, Pratap Chandra Majumder. He even wrote the satire Ek Ghore (1889) in protest against this whole event. He styled his name as Mr. Dwijen Lala Ray, in accordance to his new European lifestyle for a while, until tremendous patriotic urge and rightful anger against the regime, brought him back to his own fold. He was posted only as a Deputy Magistrate, when he expected to be a District Magistrate. His rebellious nature resulted in him being transferred much more often than was necessary. In his twenty-six years of service, he was transferred to various parts of India, as he said, “Like a football”. Joining the Swadeshi Movement resulted in more transfers. But Dwijendra was an educated, intellectual, cosmopolitan figure, a true representative of the spirit of the Bengal Renaissance. For all his animosity towards the British, he continued to relish English theatre and music. English tunes were used in many of his songs, a novelty in Bengal. These songs would attain posterity as Dwijendra Geeti. He often used these songs in his plays, which made them all the more popular. He wrote mythological and historical plays Pashani (1900), Tarabai (1903) and also Sita. He poetic collection Mandro received praise from Tagore –
Mandro has granted variety to Bengali poems. It is shimmering with novelty.
Dwijendra Lal’s last years were plagued with tragedy, ill health and controversy. His beloved wife suddenly passed away on 29 November, 1903 and he was left bereft with his children Dilip Kumar and Maya. His only solace was writing and staging plays with strong patriotic content, sometimes bordering on the crude but never failing to attract audiences. His most famous plays of the period include Rana Pratap Singha (1905), Durga Das (1906), Nur Jahan (1908), Mebar Patan (1908), Shah Jahan (1909) and Chandra Gupta (1910). The last seven years of his life were spent in the very public spats with Tagore, who chose to remain mostly silent, ignoring the barrage of constant insults by Dwijendra and his followers. But, towards the end, Dwijendra expressed his respect for Tagore in the magazine Bharatbarsha –
If our rulers had realized the greatness of Bengali literature, then they surely would have granted Knighthood to Tagore.
Maybe they both had the desire to reconcile but it was not to be. Tagore was then in England, being applauded for his poems. He was to receive the Nobel Prize only six months later. He wrote a letter from England to Dwijendra, who intended to answer it. While writing the letter, Dwijendra suffered a cerebral stroke and passed away at the age of fifty, at his home in Calcutta, on 17 May, 1913. What happened to the intended answer was later described by Tagore’s Mejo Dada, Satyendranath, in his memoir:
A few moments before his death, he was writing one or two letters–one was to my brother Rabindranath. They had been at loggerheads quite a while then – maybe that letter was an attempt at reconciliation…the sudden cerebral attack and the ensuing frenzy of pouring buckets of water on his head had had the letter washed away. The only discernable word was ‘Rabindranath’…the rest was a soggy pulp.